It didn't take long for the two to finally find a rather safe place to hide in. Well, Aurora would be the one hiding while recovering, and Rejoke would be making sure that nothing would hurt her during this time.
After all, even a completely random level 10 monster could easily kill her at the moment. Not only could she not move at all, she also couldn't defend herself using magic. She had no mana at the moment after all.
And so, after placing Aurora in a small cave that he could barely fit inside, Rejoke walked out of the small hiding spot and lied down right in front of it. He was ready to defend that cave with his life.
However, there was a very small chance that such a thing would br neccesary. While it was true that he was wounded at the moment, he could easily ignore that wound. Of course, it would be very risky, as fighting around with a cracked spine wasn't a good idea at all.
But, as long as no strong monster actually came by, it would be fine. Virtually anything below level 20-ish could forget about landing a single hit on the already wounded wolf.
As Rejoke slowly squeezed out of the tight space, Aurora fell in thought. There wasn't much else she could do anyway, so she might as well get her thoughts in order while she had the time.
Her mind trailed off in a random direction, picking up any stray thoughts that came in its direction.
And as she lost herself in thought, Aurora soon fell asleep. At the moment, it didn't matter to her how dangerous such an action would be. She knew that she shouldn't fall asleep in the current situation.
However, maybe due to the piled-up stress or because she knew that even if she was awake, she wouldn't be able to do anything, she pushed those worries aside.
She peacefully drifted off into the dreamland, knowing that if something were to happen, there was a wolf that would protect her at any cost.
Unbestknown to the black wolf, his alpha had already fallen prey to her mental exhaustion and fell asleep.
He, on the other hand, calmly lied on the grass-covered soil in front of the small cave. His head was down on the ground, and his eyes were closed.
Despite that, his senses were even sharper than normal. Although he was a magical beast, as a wolf, sight was still his weakest sense. And since that was the case, just listening with his ears was more than enough.
Now, this didn't mean his sight was weak. No, not at all. In fact, despite being his weakest sense, it was still vastly superior to regular human sight. The only difference was that he had a hard time with colors, but he could still differentiate between various objects with great accuracy.
It was just that his hearing and smell were even more advanced. And since he was limiting his sight by having his eyes closed, his brain focused mostly on hearing rather than looking.
Unless someone or something was really good at sneaking and deliberately tried to sneak, he found would be able to hear them coming.
But well, that didn't happen. After the fight with the Giant Earth Eater, Rejoke went from level 21 all the way to 25. Hardly any magical beast would be foolish enough to approach someone with such a powerful aura. Not even monsters, because while they are unintelligent, they can still sense danger.
That doesn't mean that there might not be some truly foolish ones that will try to attack him regardless, but if that were to happen, he would make quick work of them.
As Rejoke lay motionlessly on the ground, just like Aurora, he was also deep in thought. Of course, unlike Aurora, his thoughts didn't really wander around. He mostly focused on one thought.
After he reached level 25, the system sent him quite a peculiar message. He didn't understand what the system meant. Well, he honestly wasn't even sure what the system was, but he never wondered about that.
He was born with the system. To him, it was something completely normal and nothing strange that he should worry about.
However, this doesn't mean he knows how to use the various functions of the system or knows what exactly the system does.
But, even if he doesn't understand the system, he instinctively knows what it means every time it says he leveled up, or when his stats rise, and other similar things.
This time it was the same. When the system told him that he could evolve, he more or less knew what it meant. He would have to make a choice—an important choice.
That's why he waited before making a decision. He knew he shouldn't rush it, much less when Aurora was in the state she was currently in. Because if something happened because of his choice, he would put her at risk.
This was something he would absolutely never do. He would wait with the evolution until his alpha was all healed up and able to defend herself in case the situation called for it.
While Rejoke protected the cave and began to think about the next step in his path, Aurora was still lying dead-still on the ground. She slept for about five hours, and she's been awake for roughly an hour.
'Right, I should check what this thing does.' When her eyes fell on the small stone ring on her little paw, she finally remembered that she has yet to see what it does.
[Equipment:
...
...
...
- Ring 1: Ring of Iron Defense
- Ring 2: Stone Breaker Ring
...
[Total stat boost:
- Health: 10
- Intelligence: 0
- Mana: 0
- Strength: 20
- Agility: 0
- Defense: 15
[Total affinity boost:
- Earth: Slight increase
'Stone Breaker, huh? Five health, twenty strength, and an increase in earth affinity. Even stronger than my other ring.' Aurora was actually pleasantly surprised by the ring's strength.
If the ring turned out to be weaker than the one she got from the Iron Wood Berserker, she would be more than disappointed. In her eyes, the worm was much stronger than that stupid tree, even if she didn't die this time.
But seeing that the ring was even stronger, she had no complaints. A strength boost of twenty points is a lot for even the current her. Hell, just by wearing the stone ring, her strength almost doubled.
'If I activated my Leadership skill, would my strength be on Rejoke's level?' A question arose in her mind. Surprisingly, despite being just a fleeting thought, it still made her think about it quite hard.
'In natural strength, I should be able to surpass him. If I'm correct, his strength should be on a similar level as my magic, so it shouldn't be that high. So, unless he uses that skill he used against the worm, I should actually be more powerful.' This was her final verdict.
'Now that I think about it, it's been a while since I checked my status. Well, might as well. I have nothing to do anyway.' She shrugged internally and opened up her status window.
[Status]
- Name: Aurora
- Race: Snow Kitsune
- Rank: 0
- Level: 22
[Energy:
- HP: 141/141
- MP: 0/0 (133)
- SP: 132/143
[Stats:
- Health: 31 (+10)
- Intelligence: 33
- Mana: 33
- Strength: 29 (+20)
- Agility: 31
- Defense: 28 (+15)
'It certainly changed since the last time I saw it, that's for sure.' She chuckled internally, examining her current stats.
'Strength is my highest stat right now, followed by defense and then health. Meanwhile, my mana and magic are equal, with my agility being the lowest.' Aurora frowned internally, which much to her surprise caused even her body to frown.
'Huh? It seems that I'm slowly regaining control over my body. Good, I was worried that I would have to stay like this for a long time.' This was good news, good enough that it caused her to sigh in relief internally.
'Still, I don't like the balance of my stats right now. The stats I need the most are mana and magic, and then I would say agility. Yet, all three of those are my lowest stats.' In her eyes, this is a big problem.
In battle, she most relied on her magic spells. She wasn't a physically built beast, but a magically built one. Not only should she not be physically stronger than her magic, she also shouldn't be relying on stats like defense and health in combat.
Thanks to her small size and naturally higher agility, she should be dodging attacks rather than tanking them. However, with her current disposition of stats, that just seemed like an unnecessary move.
'I need a way to increase my magical stats. Unlike agility, it will probably be difficult to increase those two. After all, magic-boosting equipment probably won't be common to get among beasts that can hardly use magic. Not to mention monsters that can't use it at all.'
In the end, there was nothing she could do with her stats at the moment, so with a complicated sigh, Aurora closed the status window.
She tried to move her body, only to end up disappointed. Though she could feel her body a bit more and her sense of touch was returning to the entirety of her body, she still couldn't move an inch.
'Forget it; I shouldn't try to rush it. I'll just let my body recover properly. There are more things I need to check in the meantime anyway.' Shaking her head internally, she opened up her newest system messages to check what she missed.
'Right, there was this too.' As her eyes fell on a particular message, they flashed with a complicated glint.
[You have unlocked a new skill Ice Creation level 1.]
This was a skill that she had obtained right after she managed to create that huge ice spike at the cost of severing her mana vessels. This was also the reason for her mixed feelings about the skill.
On one side, it sounded amazing, and there wasn't a single doubt in Aurora's mind that this skill would be a huge help to her in the future. On the other hand, however, she felt reluctant to use it if she would damage her mana vessels every time she did.
'Tsk, I guess I can at least check what it does. There's no need to use it if it hurts me, but maybe I was just too reckless with it. Well, it's not like I had much of a choice back then.' Grumbling internally, she opened up the skill's description.
[Ice Creation]
- Level: 1
- Grade: Advanced
- Skill type: Active
- Attribute type: Ice
– A skill that grants the user the ability to create ice freely just by consuming their mana.
[On activation:
- Creates an ice sculpture based on the user's wishes.
- The mana cost varies based on the ice's properties like size, density, etc.
- After creating, the user can move the ice around however they wish; this however may cost more mana.
- The ice's overall strength heavily depends on the user's magic stat as well as their affinity for the ice attribute.
- The only limit this skill has is the user's imagination and their understanding of ice as an attribute.
'Actually, this doesn't sound harmful at all. Tsk, so it was really my own fault, huh?' It is truly admirable how quickly Aurora can switch from excited and happy to annoyed. I guess that's what you call a bipolar person, or rather, a bipolar fox.
'Still, this skill will definitely be useful in the future. And I also have another reason to focus on raising my magical stats, not like I have enough of them already.' With that, Aurora looked through a few more system messages and minor changes in her skills before she ultimately fell asleep once again.
------
By now, a week has passed ever since Aurora fought against the Giant Earth Eater together with Rejoke.
During this week, Aurora had finally recovered almost completely. Only three days after the battle was she able to control her body fully again, and by now, even about 70% of her total mana has returned to her.
The last week was mostly peaceful for the two. For the first three days during which Aurora had troubles to even move, the who hunted for food was mostly Rejoke. Basically, he would make sure that the fox would get everything she needed and wanted.
He carried her around when she wanted to drink; he would bring her food anytime she wanted; heck, he would even act as a bed for her to sleep on. He throughoutly spoiled the 'poor' little fox.
Meanwhile, Aurora was just grinning internally, clearly enjoying that she didn't need to do anything. However, she soon became restless.
So, as soon as she was able to control her body fully again, she would get back to her regular routine. That was: wake up, hunt, eat, drink, hunt some more, get exp, eat, drink, sleep. Very exciting, I know.
Though during this week she also added a new thing she would do—training with her new Ice Creation skill. Well, she only started to train two days ago when at least a decent amount of her mana returned to her.
Still, those two days were enough for her to learn quite a lot.
First of all, she learned how exactly multicasting worked. Before, she thought that the stronger and more advanced in a grade the spell was, the more difficult it would be to multicast it.
This, however, proved to be wrong when her Snow Magic evolved into Ice Magic. Technically, the most advanced spell she knew to this day was Ice Bolt, yet she could easily cast even more than two of them at once.
On the other hand, she still couldn't cast Freezing Snow, a spell of a lower grade, multiple times at once.
Before, she couldn't put her finger around it. She had no idea why she wasn't able to multicast some spells while easily being able to do so with others.
But she learned why during the week. It wasn't about how 'advanced' the spell was; it was about its properties.
Aurora could create an ice bolt that would be identical to the one her spell would create; however, the one she created on her own wouldn't be able to freeze the target.
This was why she couldn't multicast a spell like the Freezing Snow. She just couldn't 'image' how to make the snow, well, freezing.
There was another thing she learned. That certain 'something' was tied to the black wolf that was standing right next to her at the moment.
During the week, something clearly troubled Rejoke; however, as Aurora had no idea what that might be, she never tried to communicate with him about it.
But she had just enough by now! Today, she would get to the bottom of what was on the wolf's mind!