Two days after Rejoke's evolution, Aurora has finally made a full recovery. Her mana vessels were fully healed up, meaning that she could freely use all her mana again.
In these two days, Aurora focused mostly on leveling up. Any time she found at least a decently leveled being, she would defeat it alone. That way, she wouldn't have to share exp with Rejoke.
Besides, if the evolved wolf were to hit any of those level 18 to 20 beings, they would die from just that single strike. Truly, in his current state, Rejoke was a monster among early rank 1 beasts.
[You have defeated the Blue Toxin Snake level 22.]
[You have reached level 23.]
'Ugh, finally!' With a monstrous howl, the blue-scaled snake that Aurora was fighting against fell lifeless to the ground.
The snake's body was riddled with wounds, be it cuts, bite marks, or even holes left over by the little fox's spells.
'That was the seventh level 22 monster. Combined with those nine level 21, and more than a few dozen level 20, and I have finally managed to level up.' She sighed, climbing off the corpse of the large snake.
'I probably have two or so levels to go. The problem is that there aren't enough high-level creatures for me to kill.' She shook her head, mumbling and complaining internally.
While she was lost in her own little world, she walked over to Rejoke, who stood about ten meters away from where she fought with the snake. Without even thinking or saying anything, the little fox got on top of the wolf's head and patted him on the back.
Understanding her intention, Rejoke started to run back to their temporary home at a moderate speed. Well, if you can even call it that. It's still much faster than Aurora running at full speed, but it was only about half of Rejoke's max speed.
While she let herself be carried back, Aurora was considering a few things. She couldn't afford to level up this slowly, not to mention that it will be almost impossible for her to level up as it is now.
'I would need to hunt a bunch of level 23 monsters, which is not happening. There's no way I can find enough of them in this forest.' She shook her head internally, immediately scratching that option off the list.
'I guess I have no choice then.' She sighed heavily. In the end, she had no choice but to go with her last resort option.
'Let's just hope that it will be weaker than the Giant Earth Eater.' Yep, she was planning to take on a rank 1 monster alone.
That was exactly the problem; she had to do it alone. As it stands, if Rejoke were to help her, she would get like no exp at all. That meant only one thing: fighting a monster on a similar level to the Giant Earth Eater completely alone.
'Tsk, what's with that hesitation?' Aurora scoffed internally, scolding herself.
'You weren't afraid the first time, and you're even stronger now! So stop whining.' Giving herself a light slap, she propped herself up.
No longer hesitating, Aurora lightly patted Rejoke's back and pointed in a direction. To this, the black howl nodded his head and set off in the direction.
'Let's do this!'
...
It didn't take long for the two to arrive at the place Aurora was looking for, and so she nimbly jumped off Rejoke's back and looked into the wolf's eyes.
As if he understood completely, the wolf slowly nodded. However, it was quite obvious from his expression that he didn't like what Aurora was about to do. Still, he would comply with his alpha's wishes.
Without looking back, Aurora walked forward, ready to face the monster that gave off that nasty aura around her. And soon, the creature got into sight.
'Are you kidding me?' As her eyes fell on the massive body of the green-scaled snake in front of her, she really felt like crying.
If there was one thing she realized she completely hated, it would be snakes. Even the snake she beat earlier today was an encounter she didn't wish to go through with, but she couldn't turn down the exp.
However, this was different. This snake was a rank 1 monster, for god's sake! Aurora wasn't even sure if she could fight a monster of such caliber, but now she would even feel disgusted any time she looked at her opponent.
'Whatever, no point in holding back. I need to finish this as soon as possible.' Without a further ado, Aurora briefly closed her eyes to not look at the snake.
'Immovable Mind, Leadership!' She directly activated two of her boost skills and opened her eyes once again.
However, unlike before, she wasn't the least bit disgusted with the snake's appearance. It was the effect of Perfect Mind's active ability that completely suppressed any emotions she might have.
On the other hand, with the activation of leadership, Aurora borrowed half of Rejoke's strength, adding 32 stat points into her own stat.
Well, rather than borrowing, she copied half of his strength and added it to her own, but whatever anology is fine. The important part stays; her strength went up by a huge chunk.
If you combined her natural 30 points of strength with the 20 points granted to her by her ring, and then these 32 points, her strength reached a grand total of 82 points!
That's more than Rejoke's natural strength if he didn't use any of his skills.
What did this mean? It meant that her strength was above most low-level rank 1 monsters. This would be crucial in her upcoming battle. Although she wasn't sure what the snake in front of her specialized in, the chances of that stat being strength weren't exactly low.
And so Aurora shot out, reaching the snake in a second. The snake had barely any time to react to the sudden appearance of the small fox before he saw a claw closing in right onto its eye.
"Hisss!"
Blood splattered out, and the snake hissed in pain as Aurora swiftly jumped back. Just now, she had cleanly cut up one of the snake's eyes, half blinding it. But she wasn't satisfied yet.
Making use of the snake's shock, she nimbly got in front of it and slashed towards its second eye. However, the snake wasn't a rank 1 monster for nothing.
As soon as it sensed danger once again, it quickly put its head aside, putting its eye out of harm's way. Still, Aurora's claw reached its head and left a deep cut on it as it easily slashed through the snake's tough scales.
The beast hissed in pain once more, but it no longer stayed idle. Instead, it retaliated by quickly turning around and whipped forward with its tail.
Just as the snake's thick tail was about to hit Aurora, the cheeky fox created a small ice spike underneath her and used it to jump back while she was still in the air.
Succesfully dodging the strike, she safely landed on the ground and jumped further back, creating some space between her and the snake.
'It's fast, so it would be ideal to slow it down. However, I also doubt my freezes will have much effect on it, so it might be better to just somehow limit the snake's movement.' Even before she landed the second time, Aurora already began to think about her next step.
Right now, her brain worked even faster than ever as it was under the effects of the Immovable Mind. Right now, even a robot might not be faster than her own mind.
Seeing the source of all the pain and anger it felt, the half-blind snake rushed in towards the small fox. Though the snake was a lot smaller than the Giant Earth Eater, it was still big enough to swallow Aurora whole.
However, just as the snake got close and opened its mouth, the little white fox slashed forward with her paw, her claw colliding with one of the snake's fangs.
This made the snake sneer internally. This little creature wanted to compete with it in a contest of strength. How foolish. Those were the snake's thoughts, or something along those lines.
However, the scene of it gulping down the little creature in one go didn't happen. Instead, the small claw of the white fox was easily able to stop the snake in place, even pushing it back slowly.
And before the snake could come out of its surprised state, it felt a horrible pain in its other, healthy eye as its vision went fully blank.
If one were to look at what happened, they would see the comically small fox (when compared to the snake's size) stop the quickly approaching snake in place. Right after, a thin spike made out of pure, light blue ice shot out from the ground beneath the fox and hit the snake right in the eye.
As pain assaulted its brain, the snake reflexively pulled its head back and began to writhe around in pain.
'Tsk, I didn't manage to pierce its skull. Still, at least it's fully blind now. It shouldn't be that difficult to kill it now.' Aurora complained internally, not exactly satisfied with the result.
As the snake thrashed around on the ground, Aurora wasted no time and directly spent 30 points of mana to cast three ice bolts. Even if she now had ice creation, her normal spells were still useful, though their usage was quite limited.
Yet she didn't shoot the three spells out immediately after she finished the casting. Rather, she waited for the snake to stop moving around so much and aimed precisely at the pained beast's head.
It was for just a second. For a brief moment, the snake kept its head in one spot. But the next moment, just as it wanted to move its head again, a fresh wave of pain coursed through its body.
However, that pain disappeared the next second, along with everything else the beast felt until then.
The three bolts made out of pure ice that hit its head were able to break through its tough skull with their combined force. Then, it was as easy as cutting bread with a knife. A little 'puff' happened, and the snake's brain exploded into a bloody mess.
[You have defeated the Poison-fanged Snake level 2.]
[You have reached level 24.]
[You have reached level 25.]
[You have reached the level cap of your current rank. You need to evolve in order to level up further.]
[You have unlocked a new system function: Evolution.]
[You have obtained an item: Advanced Poison Crystal.]
[You have obtained an item: Poison Fang Necklace.]
[You have met the requirements to obtain the title: The Killer of Giants.]
As a bunch of messages appeared in front of her eyes, Aurora deactivated the active ability of her Perfect Mind and heaved a sigh of relief.
'I did it.' And as a small smile appeared on her cute little face, excitement finally hit her.
'Hell yeah, I did it! I killed that disgusting thing, and it wasn't even that hard!' Feeling overwhelmingly happy and delighted, the small fox rolled on the ground, not at all minding all the grime that got on her snow-white fur.
Right at that moment, Rejoke walked over and watched his alpha roll around happily. He was also very happy, but most importantly of all, he relieved.
He had absolute trust in Aurora, but that didn't mean he wasn't when she decided to fight such a powerful creature all on her own. Actually, if at any point in the battle it would look like Aurora was about to lose, he wouldn't hesitate to jump in and save her.
He would rather get scolded than let his alpha die just like that. But thankfully, that didn't happen, as his beloved alpha was able to overcome such a ferocious opponent with surprising ease.
Slowly calming down, Aurora stopped rolling around and got back onto her feet. Much to her surprise, Rejoke was watching the entire time as she celebrated her victory.
Feeling a bit embarrassed, she quickly turned around and walked to the corpse of the snake and looked around for everything she got for killing it.
It didn't take her long to locate a simple, leather necklace with a fang pendant, as well as a small, four-sided purple crystal.
'An advanced crystal... strange. I got a basic one from that worm, but an advanced one from this guy. Well, it's probably because I've defeated this one alone.' Not waiting around, Aurora crushed the small crystal in her paw.
Soon, all the energy from the crystal slowly entered her body and went directly to her poison soul vessel.
[Your poison soul vessel reached level 2.]
[You poison soul vessel reached level 3.]
'Two levels, huh? Wonder how much exp it gave me totally.' Aurora briefly opened up her soul vessel interference and checked her poison vessel.
- Poison vessel: Level 3 (Exp: 1950/2500)
'A total of 2500 exp, basically equal to ten basic crystals.' Running a quick calculation, she got a bit surprised by the final result but didn't dwell on it much.
'Let's quickly head back so I can finally evolve.' She thought excitedly and walked back to Rejoke.
Without waiting around, she jumped onto his back and motioned for him to head back. Soon enough, the two set off, leaving the mangled corpse of the snake behind.
'I'm finally going to evolve; I can't wait!'