"Yellow Lazbazite mineral. Enough to upgrade sublevel to 50." An automated voice echoed in his ears, and Ray's eyes sparkled in response.
"Well, I guess today's my lucky day!"
Ray then let out a short chuckle before increasing his grip exponentially as he clenched the yellow rock with his hands and the Yellow Lazbazite mineral suddenly showed the behaviour of a liquid material, melting instantly in his palms and oozing all over the rest of his arm. It then began to get absorbed into his skin, gradually fading away until his hands returned to normal.
WHAM!
All of a sudden, Ray felt an intense force pushing down on his body, and he began to glow in a yellow light that spread all over the forest. Ray felt a surge of energy in his body,similar to how he felt during the time he absorbed the Blue Lazbazite, except this time, the pressure he was feeling was ten times stronger. Ray bit his lips and clenched his fists as he waited for his body to adjust to the changes that were brought to it by the absorption, which didn't take long.
"Whew!" As soon as the intense pressure lifted from his body, Ray fell to his knees due to exhaustion and breathed a sigh of relief. "The process of absorption is still a pain in the ass, no matter how many times I get used to it." Ray whispered softly under his breath before flashing a weak smile.
"Notification: Absorption of Yellow Lazbazite mineral successful. Notification: Upgradation of host body to sublevel 50 successful." The sound of notifications echoed through the earpiece in his ears as he knelt on the ground, and Ray let out a soft chuckle in response before continuing to breathe heavily.
"Shit! Fuck yeah…" Ray wanted to scream with joy, but he was too exhausted to do so. He then sat down next to the corpse of the Dragontooth Lion, took out the liquid food products and began slurping them down.
After slurping down a few of the liquid nutrients and resting on the ground for a few minutes, Ray felt replenished and he got up on his feet with enthusiasm.
"Finally.." Ray spoke with a smile before doing a few warm-up exercises like stretching, after which he grabbed his laser pistol and adjusted his grip, which had gotten stronger due to the absorption of the Yellow Lazbazite mineral. He didn't want to make a mistake by pressing on the trigger by accident due to his increased strength.
"Alright then," Ray said as he turned to look at the burnt corpse of the Dragontooth Lion for one last time, and continued, "Time to find out what injured you so badly."
Ray began walking in the direction that the Dragontooth Lion came from, his eyes scanning the dirt road in front of him as well as his surroundings.
What he was searching for was a monster that was capable of injuring a Dragontooth Lion, and it wasn't like he had a whole hunter party to help him. He was all alone, which is why Ray knew that he had to be extremely careful.
The dirt road led Ray up a steep hill, and after a long and tiresome walk, he reached the top, which gave Ray a clear view of the other side of the hill.
"What the hell?!" Ray's eyes widened as he stared at what appeared to be a huge sinkhole of sorts right in the middle of the dense jungle.
The sinkhole seemed to have a diameter of about a hundred metres, which meant that it was an enormous hole in size. But what confused Ray was how the sinkhole seemed to have extremely sharp borders and an almost perfect shape. It was as though the hole was created by some kind of a machine.
"Are there any other dungeons near this place?" Ray looked confused. The hole looked way too perfect to be natural. But he also knew that there hasn't been a single record of the appearance of two or more dungeons within a distance of about ten thousand kilometres, may it be the present, or even the future that he knew of.
So then, what the hell was happening?
"This is just making me more and more intrigued…" Ray felt even more curious now. After all, he doesn't remember ever hearing about the appearance of any sinkholes back in his previous lives. So this definitely was kept under wraps for some reason.
After thinking about the sinkhole for a few seconds, Ray shrugged his shoulders and went down the hill, moving in the direction of the sinkhole.
'It's not like I'd be able to find any answers by just standing here,' Ray's mind told him. And so, he decided to shorten the distance and get a closer look at the sinkhole.
Ray walked through the dense forest, and all of a sudden, stopped moving. He looked down on the ground, and there was a dead corpse of a monster on the ground.
"Well, hello there…" Ray whispered softly as he kneeled down on the ground and inspected the dead body.
The monster seemed to be a Slither, a long slimy looking creature with muscular legs. It wasn't a powerful monster, but it was weird that the Slither was lying dead so deep within the jungle. Usually, low level monsters like these are found near the entrance of the dungeons, acting as cannon fodder for the hunters before they take on the main boss of the dungeon. That's why it was quite unusual for it to be present here.
Ray narrowed his eyes and his grip tightened on his laser pistol. He got up on his feet and looked around, only to find the corpses of multiple monsters lying on the grass. Some of them were of low level, while some were in the mid-level.
Ray couldn't help but feel that something was terribly wrong. But his curiosity was forcing him to stay and observe the situation.
[ Warning. ]
All of a sudden, the automated voice echoed in his ears, and Ray instantly became alert.
Whoosh!
He leapt into the air, planting his foot on the bark of a nearby tree, and jumped up once again, landing on top of one of the tree branches.
[ Presence of multiple monsters detected 475 metres away from the current location of the host. ]
The automated voice continued delivering the notification right into Ray's ears, and he, in response, pointed his laser pistol at the sinkhole, which was the direction where the tracker seemed to be indicating the monsters were coming from.
[ Notification: Calculation of the appropriate number of monsters completed. ]
The automated voice continued echoing within Ray's ears.
[ Notification: The number of monsters is appropriately 55. ]
"Well, fuck me…" Ray let out a helpless chuckle. It seemed that the number of enemies this time was much more than he had imagined.
Whoosh!
Ray knew what he had to do, and so he immediately leapt down from the tree branch and dashed straight up the hill, reaching the top within seconds.
He might be someone who's reincarnated many times, but he knew that he couldn't take on fifty enemies. Not even the strongest version of his past lives would take on a group of fifty enemies all on his own.
Ray stopped in his tracks once he reached the top of the hill, and he turned around and tapped the side of his glasses, which zoomed in on the sinkhole, allowing him to get a clearer view of what was happening there.
GRRRR!
Ray watched as multiple lizard-like creatures that walked on two legs exited the sinkhole, their body covered in black scales and their hands possessing sharp claws.
"Aren't those Black Bugs?" Ray muttered under his breath as he watched the group of monsters with a confused expression on his face. They were similar in appearance to the Black bugs, but Ray didn't remember seeing any of them walking on two legs.
So what the hell were these monsters?
"Are they some kind of mutated version of the Black Bugs?" Ray asked himself, but he couldn't find an answer no matter how hard he thought.
He continued watching the monsters, but they simply roamed around the outside of the sinkhole, not doing anything other than walking back and forth, which made Ray even more confused.
Right then..
"What the hell?" Ray noticed the mutated creatures that were simply roaming around until now had suddenly turned their attention in one direction. Ray shifted his gaze in the direction where the monsters were staring at, and found a Dragontooth Lion slowly approaching the sinkhole.
"Why is it moving so slowly? And why the fuck is it acting as though it couldn't see the Black Bug mutants in front of it?" Ray mumbled to himself. The Dragontooth Lion was moving so slow, as though it was sleepwalking, and it was also moving in the direction of the Black bug mutants.
If this was a normal situation, then the Dragontooth Lion would've definitely tried to attack these creatures. But for some reason, it acted as though they weren't there.
What was going on?