Upon witnessing the fish's powerful feat of biting the rock clean in half, Aureum released a surprised gasp! The fish then turned in the direction from which the rock came. Upon noticing Aureum nearby it started to swim toward his direction. Aureum, realizing he was quite close to the water, quickly retreated from the edge of the pond!
After waiting a few minutes, which felt like days, Aureum let loose a sigh of relief, "It seems the fish cannot chase or attack me out of the water." While he knew how dumb his thoughts seemed strange, he didn't know the abilities of the fish!
Aureum, after all had just reincarnated, who knew if this fish could grow legs and chase him or not? Relieved that it did not have that ability he started to mull over the information he had just gained from his short interaction with the fish. Thinking of the fish's strength and weaknesses, he started formulating a plan to catch his first meal!
After brainstorming for about 10 minutes Aureum finally had an idea of what to do! He would find some sort of weapon and use it to fight the fish in the water! In order for his plan to work he needed to find a few things first. Looking around the somewhat compact area, he spotted his target, a small group of extremely pointy looking stalactites hanging from the roof of the cave.
Making his way over there, Aureum stayed as far away as possible from the pond in the middle. Upon reaching his target, Aureum quickly realized a flaw in his plan that he should've noticed before! He was a little tiger cub now, how was he supposed to reach the stalactites, let alone use them?
Quickly trying to think of something else, Aureum suddenly had a far better idea! Instead of trying to fight the fish inside the pond as he previously planned, he would force the fish out of the water and onto land! Wondering on how he would achieve this, around 10 minutes later, Aureum decided on his new plan. He would lure the fish to the edge of the pond, and then force it out of the water by smacking it as hard as he could!
After all that time of thinking, Aureum really couldn't come up with anything else, it wasn't like he had the materials or means to use tools with his paws. Feeling his stomach rumble again Aureum didn't want to wait any longer, quickly going into action! Aureum grabbed a nearby rock and walked to the edge of the pond, proceeding to fling the rock as hard as he could in the fish's direction!
The fish had seen him beforehand this time, so it dodged the rock, and rapidly swam towards Aureum! Everything was proceeding similarly to their first encounter, except Aureum didn't run away this time, and instead stood there waiting. Upon noticing this, the fish even sped up to reach him faster! Preparing to strike the fish, Aureum readied his paw and bunched his muscles!
Everything occurred in a matter of seconds, as soon as the fish was within reach, Aureum released a right hook with all of the strength he could muster!
The fish upon noticing what was happening, quickly tried to alter it's path, but it was too late! It had already gone to the edge of the pool where it had no room to maneuver away from the oncoming attack! Aureum's paw connected, and with more strength than he thought possible, sent the fish flying out of the water and into the air!
Aureum quickly made his way to where he hit the fish, being cautious in case of any attacks produced by the fish. Spotting the fish, Aureum watched it flop around on the floor, careful of any strange movements. Around two minutes later, the fish had stopped moving and Aureum went to check if it was dead.
Nearing the fish, which Aureum hoped had died from suffocation, he noticed something strange happening near it's mouth. Carefully getting closer to the fish, he finally saw what it was! Dodging to the side as quickly as possible, he was nearly too late as the fish released a condensed bolt of water at the direction from which he was previously approaching.
Hiding again, Aureum watched the fish from afar, waiting a few more minutes until the fish seemed to go limp. Hurriedly running over, he slapped the fish's head with all of his might, slamming it into the hard stone ground.
The fish, in a last ditch effort, gathered all of it's remaining strength and tried smacking him with it's tail fin! But it was all for naught, upon reaching Aureum it barely had any force behind it, and only lightly tapped him.
This is when something strange and exciting happened! Aureum relieved the fish was finally dead, started to relax, when something popped up in the corner of his vision. Trying to focus on it, it suddenly appeared in his face, causing him to fall backwards. Quickly regaining his wits, Aureum tried to discern what had just happened.
One second he had just killed the fish, and the next a weird screen had appeared in front of him, making him jump in fear. Swiftly looking at the screen he saw something that made his heart race! On the screen were four notifications!
[-1 HP]
[You have slain LVL 6 Sharp-Toothed Trout gained 100 EXP]
[Level Up! Awarded 3 free stat points]
[Level Up! Awarded 3 free stat points]
Reading these notifications, Aureum was over the moon with excitement! Maybe this second chance at life wouldn't be so boring after all!