It didn't take long for Kane's energy to start to decrease again. Although it was easy, digging consumed a lot of energy, it seems… Kane had to stop when the hole was just five meters deep. There was a shadow that he could use, but it wasn't enough.
"It looks like digging my way out of here isn't an option… in the worst-case scenario, this is an underground dungeon, and the only way would be following the correct paths or digging upward."
Both options would be hard to achieve. Even though it seemed safer to dig upward, Kane would need much more energy to do that. The energy which he could only be acquired by fighting against monsters and eating them. Besides, it would be kind of hard to hide a hole in the ceiling of a dungeon.
"I also have to worry that my hideout might collapse… I can't get carried away."
Regardless, Kane would have to copy the spider and create a stock of food. Considering that he could store energy in his body, he didn't have to worry about his food rotting away. Hence, the only problem was to find food. Fortunately, it didn't take long for Kane to hear the sound of a bat approaching.
As expected, there was no food in the dungeon, so every single monster had to hunt each other… Kane had no idea how things could work like that, but since he was in a fantasy world, even crazy stuff like an environment filled with only predators seemed possible. Besides, monsters could magically spawn, so the sky was the limit.
Unfortunately, even though Kane made quite a bit of noise and exposed himself quite a lot, the damn bat didn't notice him. For a few moments, Kane thought about what he should do when he heard the sound of the bat being killed by a spider. The only thing he could think of was actually to learn Water Ball. Much to his surprise, his options had increased when he accessed that section.
Water Ball Lv 01 (10)
Fireball Lv 01 (20)
Stone Bullet Lv 01 (30)
Headbutt Lv 01 (50)
Sand Screen Lv 01 (50)
Earth Arrow Lv 01 (100)
"I guess by reincarnating as different monsters, the more skills I will be able to buy… that damn voice, why doesn't it explain such a thing."
That kind of information was useful, but it was at the same time terrible because it meant that Kane could only learn a limited amount of skills for the time being. So, the reincarnation points he could obtain by leveling up those were also limited. Kane doubted that it could come a time when he would obtain enough points to buy all possible skills, but that kind of limitation was still annoying.
Regardless, Kane didn't have any other choice, so he bought Water Ball. The consumption of mana was low, but even though the power would also be low, a long-range attack would eventually become useful.
"Mmm… maybe I should test how well Water Ball can fare against the spider. Even though it will take a while, I will eventually recover the points I spend to buy it. Besides, it will eventually reach a level that will make a difference in some battles."
It was clear that his attacks wouldn't destroy the threads, but the spider didn't create a castle of it, after all. So, Kane could hit it. If anything, it was a suitable method to harass and weaken the monster. Even if he causes one point of damage per attack, as long as the spider can recover less than sixty points of health per hour, Kane would be able to kill it. Instead, he was quite sure the spider wasn't that strong…
"Well, just to be safe, I shouldn't let my mana decrease all that much… since I recover one point per minute, I will use the Water Ball once every minute. Although bats can fly in groups of two, it would be too weird if they fly in groups of three or more... there aren't many monsters to hunt, after all."
After they approached the dead-end where the spider was, Kane observed it and quickly found a path where he could hit the spider with a one hundred percent hit chance. Her defenses were quite long and vast, but there were several holes… that was fine, given that her targets were bats, and they couldn't pass by those holes.
Without wasting time, Kane shot a Water Ball without revealing itself, and once he confirmed the hit, he took a few steps backward in case the spider also had some long-ranged skills. The spider staggered and shook its head since it got stunned for half a second since it got hit there, but the monster didn't do anything after that. Even though the beast could clearly see Kane a few dozen meters from there.
"I guess that thing doesn't have any long-ranged skill… Still, I can't be careless. For some reason, I have a good aim, but only when the target is relatively big, and they are ten or so meters away from me. The spider will help me train my aim, and I will hit two birds with one stone."
In any case, Kane waited for a minute, and then when his mana bar was full again, he approached the spider's nest. As expected, even when the monster was in his perfect range, it didn't move in any way. The creature didn't even try to fill the hole Kane used with threads. Kane fired again. This time the spider tried to move, but since Kane had predicted its movements given the path of threads, he still hit the monster.
Kane opened his skill list, and there he confirmed the experience obtained… at that rate, he would level up the skill in ten minutes and level up again twenty minutes after that. It wasn't insufficient progress. Actually, it was pretty good, given that the spider had no intention of retaliating.
"Yes… this way, I will confirm how much experience I will need at higher levels. So, I should keep doing this. Given that the spider is moving quite a bit backward, I'm causing some damage. It is only a matter of time."
Unfortunately, it looked like Kane wouldn't have much time for that. He heard the sounds of two bats shrieking and quickly approaching. By the look of things, Kane wouldn't have the chance to retreat… this time, he would have to face two bats directly. That would be difficult, but at the very least, by winning, he would obtain two meals.