The requirement to unlock the [Hydrosis T2] trait was for Alex to consume a thousand water attribute things or five higher tiered items. The second possible way to unlock this trait was the one Alex was going to aim for since just so happened to have an idea where he could find them. Thanks to the fact that this world wasn't a game Alex knew that if he looked hard enough he could find resources that only showed up at higher tiers in the game. The one Alex was after however was the high rank small monster part known as grand gajau whiskers.
While in the game you needed to wait until high rank to acquire these things but in reality you merely needed to go into the much deeper areas of the wildspire waste that wasn't shown in the game that the stronger monster lived in. Each of the "zones" shown in the game had these areas even if you never got to see them as they were mentioned during the dialogue briefly. Alex would normally never even contemplate going to these areas since most large monsters there would kill him without issue.
However heading into these areas to collect gajau parts wouldn't be a problem since if he was stealthy none of those monsters would even realize he was there while he picked off the weak catfish. With this in mind Alex went back to his nest to rest up for tomorrow early so that he was in his best state during his highly risky exploration into these uncharted areas. About an hour before dawn Alex woke up and stretched before leaving astera through the dark sky above. He reached the waste thirty minutes later but didn't go to the normal areas but even further into the distance.
Despite having similar ecology as the normal marsh area the faint fog hovering over the watery and dark landscape made Alex uncomfortable. He could feel the presences of the large monsters sending suppression through his instincts much like zorah magdaros but not nearly as strongly so he ignored it much the same. This was the benefit of being sapient as a monster , Alex could flat out decide not to listen to his instincts unlike other monsters. Humans had always been notoriously famous for doing exactly this for most of their lives and as a former human Alex was no different making it an easy thing for him.
The sun started to rise and warm up the world as Alex silently flew overhead the marsh while looking for his targets. As the fog cleared from the sun's warmth Alex finally spotted a small group of five fat greenish brown fish at the waters surface. Carefully scanning their surroundings Alex nodded to himself when he failed to see any threats before diving down towards the unsuspecting fish. Halfway down however he violently braked in the air forcefully ignoring the strain it put on him as he saw the marsh next to the fish roil before a massive mouth lunged out at the gajau.
Alex shuddered while looking at the now calm waters that stilled mere moments after an unknown monster devoured five meter long gajau in an instant. 'This may be more difficult than I originally thought' he thought seriously. Regardless of the risk Alex was determined to complete his mission and get those gajau parts even if the risk to himself was higher than expected. Alex slowly lowered his altitude while avoiding any spots that he felt large monster presences from as well was those that were suspiciously empty.
While he had a few close calls in the end Alex did unlock the [hydrosis T2] trait before immediately vacating the area in a hurry. Alex safely returned to the normal areas of the wildspire waste and eventually astera much to his relief. Unknown to him however his presence in that area had been noticed by a certain monster that ruled the area but had been deemed insignificant to it. If this monster had decided otherwise Alex would have been in a very bad situation after all , no elder dragon was truly weak.
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