About two weeks have passed since Aurora's first battle with the Vicious Trapper. In these two weeks, Aurora spent most of her time exploring the forest she first woke up in. Though two weeks may not seem like much, for Aurora, who lost basically all of her memory, these two weeks represented her entire life.
Aurora learned a lot of new things and became considerably stronger during this time. For example, her status looked like this right now:
[Status]
- Name: Aurora
- Race: Snow Kitsune
- Rank: 0
- Level: 7
[Energy:
- HP: 116/116
- MP: 118/118
- SP: 113/113
[Stats:
- Health: 16
- Intelligence: 18
- Mana: 18
- Strength: 14
- Agility: 16
- Defense: 13
In those two weeks, Aurora leveled up four times, which meant she reached level 7. What? Four levels in two weeks doesn't seem impressive at all, you say? Well, it's true that compared to how she leveled up two times just by killing that one Trapper, her current leveling speed isn't nearly impressive; there's actually a good reason for that.
'The monsters here are too weak for me to level up at at least a decent pace. Most monsters here range from levels 3-5; some are level 6.' This was Aurora's first thought when she saw how little progress she had made in those two weeks.
'I need to kill about five monsters that are equal to me in levels and at least twenty of those that are one level lower. The problem is that during these two weeks, I only encountered four level 6 monsters and only one level 7 monster.'
Now that Aurora is level 7, any monster below level 6 gives her basically no exp. Though she doesn't know exactly how much exp. she needs to level up (the system doesn't tell her/there's no exp. counter), she can more or less estimate the amount.
She had to kill around five monsters with a level equal to her and twenty of those one level below her. As for those that are two levels below her, she's not sure if even a hundred of such monsters would be enough.
Most of the 'strong' beings here she encountered were level 5, the same level as the first Trapper she fought. The strongest monster she encountered was a level 7 monster named Acid Belcher.
It was a plant-type monster that, just like its name implies, was able to shoot balls of acid at its enemies. Back then, Aurora was level 4, so it was quite the ordeal to kill it, but thanks to her magic, she was able to pull through without getting seriously injured.
That fight was quite important, as it made Aurora realize some important things. Though her magic and spells sound quite weak, even that 'low' damage of the Snowball is way more powerful than the damage scratch does.
'My magic and mana are higher than my strength, and my ice affinity is higher due to my race. All those things combined make my Snow Magic really strong, at least compared to my other skills.' These were Aurora's thoughts on the matter.
After that fight, Aurora started using her magic way more than before, but she was still careful with her mana. Mana passively regenerates, unlike stamina, but the rate is quite slow, so Aurora mostly uses her mana only when needed.
But being a test subject wasn't the only useful thing about that level 7 monster. Since Aurora was level 4 at the time, she managed to obtain another attribute crystal.
It's name was Simple Poison Crystal and the vessel it strengthened after consumption was, you guessed it, the poison vessel.
'Unfortunately, just one crystal wasn't enough to level it up. Just like the nature vessel, it'll take two simple atrribute crystals to get the vessel to level 2.' Even though Aurora has no poison or nature type skills, that doesn't mean she won't have some in the future, so more affinity with those attributes might come in handy.
Anyway, since we're already talking about skills, it might be nice to mention those too. Just like Aurora, her skills have also leveled up considerably in these two weeks. She even got a new one.
[Skills]
- Scratch Level 5
- Bite Level 3
- Night Vision Level 8
- Poison Resistance Level 2
- Snow Magic Level 5
Yep, all of her skills went up by at least two levels, and she obtained one new skill. As it turns out, acid counts as a higher-grade poison, so when Aurora got hit during her fight with the Acid Belcher, she managed to obtain a new skill.
[Poison Resistance]
- Level: 2
- Grade: Basic
- Skill type: Passive
- Attribute type: Poison
– The basic resistance-type skill against the poison attribute.
[Effects:
- Completely nulifies any effects that toxin-class poisons could have on the user's body.
- Gives some resistance against the effects that poison-class poisons have on the user's body upon external contact.
- Has no effects in the case of internal contact.
'I got barely hit on my tail by its acid ball, but even that was for me to obtain a basic grade skill at level 2. I really don't want to imagine what would happen if that thing hit my body or my head instead of my tail.' When Aurora first read through the skill's description, she shuddered, just imagining how strong that acid must have been.
Actually, when she looked at the information about the Acid Belcher, its threat level was F+, the same as hers, but according to the system, the threat level of its acid was at least an E. If that acid ball had hit her straight on back then, she would have probably died.
Well, anyway, apart from her new Poison Resistance, all of Aurora's skills became significantly stronger. The most visible ones were Scratch, Night Vision and Snow Magic. Now that Scratch is level 5, its power has practically doubled. Even its description has changed, now it says that it deals lesser physical damage instead of a low one.
Next up is Night Vision, which has gone all the way up to level 8. Unlike before, where the difference between with and without the skill wasn't really that big, now Aurora could basically see in the dark completely.
As for Snow Magic, the difference was also huge. While it didn't directly boost the strength of her previous spells, it unlocked her a new spell, Snow Storm.
[Snow Storm]
- Mastery: 1
- Grade: Simple
- Spell type: Active
- Attribute type: Ice
– A skill learned by those who mastered Snow Magic. Though it is still simple, it takes some talent to learn it.
[On activation: Consumes 50 MP to summon a snowstorm above the caster.
- Deals continuous, low ice-type damage to anything within its radius.
- Any being within the snow storm's radius will have their agility lowered based on how strong they are compared to the caster.
- If a being stays within the snowstorm for 3 minutes, they will be inflicted with the status effect: Minor Freeze .
- If a being stays within the snowstorm for 10 minutes, they will be inflicted with the status effect: Lesser Freeze.
- Consumes 10 MP every 30 seconds to keep the spell active.
It was certainly the most powerful spell that Aurora could use at the moment, but it had a huge drawback: the cost. Aurora hasn't even reached 120 max mana, so the cost of 50 MP per cast and then 10 MP every 30 seconds was way too severe.
In her current state, Aurora can keep the spell active for only six minutes before running out of mana. She also wouldn't be able to use any other spells during that time. So even though Snow Storm was a great spell, it wasn't very practical.
'Still, it will probably be useful in the future, but until I have more mana to feed it, I shouldn't use it much.' This was Aurora's decision after she read through the spell's description.
But as it turns out, the lack of mana and enemies weren't Aurora's only problems. There was one more problem: her stamina.
When looking at the system's description of SP, it said that it can be recovered by eating, drinking, sleeping, or through a skill. That was certainly true, as all those actions do recover stamina, but there was something the system hasn't mentioned.
It wasn't that stamina can be recovered by eating, drinking, or sleeping; Aurora needed to do all of those. Yes, it is true that if she, for instance, ate something, her stamina would recover, but it would never fully recover.
At some point, just eating wouldn't recover any stamina, forcing her to drink and sleep. Basically, it could be said that the stamina bar was made up of three different parts. Because of this, Aurora was forced to eat, drink, and sleep.
Of course, that's not really a problem, at least not the first two. Most of the monsters in this forest were edible, with the exception of the Acid Belcher. Drinking was also easy to manage since Aurora knew about the lake in the clearing she woke up in. The real problem was the stamina part, which belonged to sleep.
Even though Aurora became way stronger and most monsters in the forest weren't much of a problem for her to kill, sleeping somewhere randomly was still extremely dangerous.
Since this was the case, Aurora always tried to find a cave or something to sleep in. It still wasn't exactly safe, but it was better than sleeping somewhere in the open. Even then, she only slept when absolutely necessary. There's also another slight problem with sleeping...
'Urgh, I need a bed!' It was impossible for Aurora to sleep on the floor. It doesn't matter whether it was a cave or just somewhere randomly in the forest; she couldn't fall asleep without having at least something that could resemble a bed.
'I don't even remember how it feels to sleep on a bed, so why the hell do I still need one?!' This actually made Aurora slightly pissed. Her memory is completely shit, but in moments like these, it suddenly kicks in.
Thankfully, just piling up some leaves and lying down on them seemed to have solved the problem, but it was still incredibly annoying.
'Damned selective memory, always working properly at the worst moments.' Honestly, Aurora wished for nothing more than having her memory back.
But despite the minor inconveniences, Aurora kept pushing forward without stopping. And although she complained a lot, she always did everything to get stronger—something that became difficult due to the absence of powerful monsters.
'Is it time to face 'that' thing? But am I really ready for it?' Aurora felt truly uneasy just thinking about fighting 'that'. It wasn't fear, just a bad feeling of knowing whether she was strong enough.
What is 'that', you ask? Aurora herself doesn't really know. The only thing she knows is that one day, during her casual hunt, she located a source of incredible pressure.
The kind of pressure that made her blood boil with excitement about fighting a strong opponent. Of course, back then, Aurora knew she was way too weak to even consider fighting whatever that monster was. But now, she felt like she could put up at least a bit of a fight.
'Yeah, let's do it!' Taking a deep breath and steeling her resolve, Aurora got up from her makeshift bed that she was currently lying on and set out back into the forest.
Though she slept wherever she considered safe, she still used one place as a sort of main base. This place was the exact same cave she first woke up in after appearing in this world.
Once Aurora entered the forest again, which took only a few seconds, she went straight ahead in a seemingly random direction. This was quite obviously not true, as she knew perfectly where she was going.
Thankfully, Aurora had a really good sense of spatial awareness. It was so good, in fact, that she basically created a map in her mind, thanks to which she knew about the location of any place she had been to before.
It was very easy to get lost in a forest as lush and dense as this one. Everything looked the same, and there were hardly any marks that one could remember. It was incredible that, despite all this, Aurora could still navigate this place so well.
And sure enough, it didn't take her long to arrive at the place where she felt that immense pressure before. Correction, not before; she feels it even now. Whatever the source of that pressure, it was still there, as if it were waiting for this moment.
Aurora's heart started to beat fast with excitement, and a smile formed on her small lips. She was clearly pumped about the upcoming battle.
To be honest, even she herself didn't know when she became such a battle freak, but she didn't care either. In her eyes, things like her mood swings and weird personality traits were small and insignificant matters.
Not wanting to wait anymore, Aurora walked forward to the source of the pressure, ready to face that monster. Whatever that monster was, one of them would die today, and Aurora was definitely not planning to be the one who wouldn't make it.