Jack quickly checked his health and saw that the little bloodsuckers had already done five points of damage.

He needed a way to get them off without doing more damage to himself. A huge concern is that he could not feel any of them biting into him. Even when he wiggled a leg, he couldn’t feel it when their bodies moved on his leg.

He was pretty sure you were not supposed to rip leeches off. In movies, he'd seen people burn them off, but he couldn’t start a fire in the rain and it would take too long.

There was that urban myth about flexing while a mosquito was sucking blood, causing it to explode. With his Hydraulic Leap, he could possibly get enough pressure to do that. That would most likely be a horrible plan because even if he could shoot enough blood into them to make them explode, he would still lose all that blood.

Pulling out a knife, he slid the blade between their mouth and his skin. He slowly slid the knife to the side more pushing them off than cutting them. It worked surprisingly well.

After stomping on the first couple of leeches, he would instead throw them on the ground and have Lucy kill them. As gross as they were, the leeches were like a small treasure trove of experience.

While peeling them off, he checked his afflictions to see if there was an explanation for the numbness on the skin of his leg

Carmilla's Kiss - Minor Pain Suppression

Bleeding

-1 Vitality

Besides a bleeding effect, it really wasn’t that bad of an affliction. The question though, was why didn’t he get a notification about it? Almost every time he’d gotten an affliction, it gave him some sort of notification. Why not for this? Was it poison or some other kind of effect?

He’d have to collect some later and find out, preferably after he went back across the river.

Your party has slain 26 Carmilla’s Chosen Level: 1

Your contribution 40%

You are awarded 93 Experience. **Level Up** You are awarded 5 attribute points

Perfect timing for a level up, right when he enters a potentially dangerous new area. He put two points into perception, one into dexterity, and two into endurance, bringing his total stamina up to thirty-six now equal to his health.

Jack started exploring the area by going along the river’s edge to get an estimate of this landmass’s size, but he swiftly found it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Instead of a simple rectangle, the edges curved around, giving him the impression that this area was a large circle or oval.

There were several spots where the river cut into the land going towards the center of the dungeon. The inward rivers were around twenty feet across and he was easily able to jump over them using Hydraulic Leap.

After getting an idea of the shape of the area, he decided against traveling along the entire edge and started heading inland.

He had barely walked twenty feet in before he saw a figure appear at the edge of the mist. It was the size of a bobcat, so he prepared for a quick and easy fight. Lucy climbed off of his head and onto his shoulder.

Appearing from the fog was indeed a bobcat, just very different from the ones he had seen up to now.

It was missing most of its hair, all over its skin were festering open wounds. The red vine was much thicker with more branches coiled around the cat’s body. The eye from the socket that the vine was growing into was shriveled like a dehydrated prune.

The part that made him the most uneasy though was that the buds that usually lined the vine were all open, revealing dozens of little black pods on where a sunflower’s seeds would be.

Bobcat Blooming Titan Drone Level: 14 Near the end of a Budding Titan Drones life span, its flowers bloom, increasing its versatility in battle.

With almost all of its Vitality drained, the host is just a shell of its former self. Most of the host’s blood has been replaced with the sap of the Blooming Corpse Titan, empowering it well beyond its normal capabilities.

A Blooming Titan Drone will always be close to its parent as it prepares itself for death.

Age: 1 Year

Highest Attribute: Dexterity

Highest Skill: Poisoned Claw Mastery

Instead of immediately charging him as Jack expected it to do, it let out a gurgling growl that caused yellow ichor to drip from its mouth. Then a dozen of the black pods burst, sending tiny needles straight towards him.

If he hadn’t already known what the pods did, he would have been caught completely off guard and been hit by them. Instead, Jack was able to dodge to the side, narrowly avoiding the needles.

Once he was mid-dodge, the bobcat charged forward. Jack swung his staff to intercept the cat’s head. It surprised him by ducking under his attack, closing the distance to rake towards his exposed legs. It got one deep slash on his right leg before Jack was able to swing his staff back, hitting it in the ribs and throwing it to the side.

He felt a few bones break even though he hadn’t been able to use a Hydraulic Strike.

As it was thrown back from his attack, one of the vines wrapped around its body uncoiled and whipped out wrapping itself around Jack’s left leg. Pulling with that vine, it both ripped Jack’s leg out from under him and simultaneously pulled itself to its feet.

As Jack fell, Lucy took the opportunity to leap towards the bobcat, landing on its injured side, and immediately stabbed her fangs in twice before she had to jump away to dodge a swipe from the cat.

Knowing how tough the vines are, Jack didn’t bother to pull out his sword to try to cut through the one wrapped around his leg. Instead, he decided his best course of action would be to aggressively end this fight as quickly as possible.

Since Lucy had attacked it, the bobcat was momentarily distracted giving Jack the opportunity to get back to his feet. As he dashed straight at the bobcat, he saw some of its black pods pop.

Taking a risk, he didn’t attempt to dodge the needles flying towards his chest, instead, he used a Hydraulic Strike to smash his staff into the side of its head with a swift followup where he brought it down on top of its skull.

He didn’t have any time to celebrate his victory as two sprinting figures came out of the mist. A seven-foot-tall buck and a large fox, both only budding drones.

The buck mindlessly charged at Jack, poison coated antlers first. Jack jumped to the side and used the top of his staff to deflect the incoming antlers, leading the deer’s charge off course.

Feeling a spike in emotion from Lucy, Jack glanced over to see that a black bear budding titan drone had emerged from the mist as well. Unfortunately for the bear, it could do little as Lucy crawled over its body, depositing small payloads of venom. She kept moving near the bear’s head to keep its attention on her and away from Jack. The slow paws would most likely take her out in a single hit, but they weren’t able to get anywhere near the quick little spider.

While the buck turned and started striking forward with its antlers towards Jack, the fox rushed in to attack his legs.

Jack used a Hydraulic Strike right as the fox reached his legs, bringing his foot down with enough force that he felt the small creature’s spine snap.

Crushing the fox slowed Jack’s movement enough that he could not dodge the next lunge of the buck. He was able to prevent himself from being impaled by blocking with his staff, effectively pushing him back instead of stabbing him.

The force of the attack was enough to knock Jack onto the ground once more. With its unrelenting aggression, the buck reared back and brought its hooves down towards Jack, not giving him a chance to dodge.

Barely getting the timing right, as the hooves were about to slam into Jack, he activated Impact Rejection which reflected the force of the impact back onto the buck. The buck was thrown back, but the skill drained Jack of nearly all his stamina.

With heaving breaths, Jack got to his feet and pulled out his pistol. The buck recovered from being thrown back and charged forward. Aiming the pistol at the ground just in front of himself, he waited until the buck was almost to him before shooting open a barrier.

The buck crashed into the barrier, breaking off pieces of its antlers and momentarily dazing it. Jack dropped the pistol and grabbed his staff with both hands. He used the last of his stamina for a Hydraulic Strike aimed at the buck’s wide open neck. When the staff made contact, a snap could be heard and the deer crumpled to the ground.

Your party has slain

1 Bobcat Blooming Titan Drone Level: 14

1 Deer Budding Titan Drone Level: 9

1 Fox Budding Titan Drone Level: 3

Your contribution 90%

You are awarded 54 Experience.

Seeing lights as he tried to catch his breath, he looked towards Lucy’s fight with the bear. While it was already showing signs of Lucy’s poison taking effect, it didn’t look like the bear was going to die for a while.

Like most of the drones, the bear wasn’t actually making any noise. Thinking about it, the only times more drones have shown up mid-fight is when one of them made some sort of vocal noise. The boar with its squealing and this blooming drone with its weird gurgling growl.

He scanned the fog, looking for any sign of drone reinforcements. With nothing in sight, he figured that unless something stumbled upon them, nothing was coming. That gave Lucy the chance to whittle down the bear and Jack a chance to regain stamina.

WIth her menu open so he could make sure she wasn’t running out of stamina either, he went around collecting the vines. If he didn’t already think the vines had some value, he would have after reading the description of the blooming drone.

**Alert** You have been poisoned

He figured that was coming, but with all his resistance training to this specific poison, he knew it wouldn’t fully paralyze him. The most it affected him now was making his body stiff and mildly numb.

It took another twenty minutes, but the bear fell. By that time he was prepared for another attack, but nothing showed up.

Your party has slain a Black Bear Budding Titan Drone Level: 15

Your contribution 0%

You are awarded 0 Experience.

Since Jack was actively watching her status screen, he was able to see how much experience she received. Thirty experience for something eleven levels above her. Based on what he knows about experience, she should have received twenty-one, ten plus eleven for it being eleven levels higher than her. Although he could see the system giving a bonus of some sort when you kill something over ten levels higher.

The rest of the day was spent picking fights with lone budding drones. Lucy even leveled up halfway through the day. She was very confused when a golden coin appeared in front of her once she was level five. Jack stored it away with his skill coins in safekeeping until she could use it.

Two skill evolutions occurred by the end of the day, the first was for Lucy’s Hair Manipulation.

**Alert** New Skill Evolution Available Choose one Pigment Manipulation Micro-Manipulation Hardening

He was honestly surprised they had the same options for evolutions. Especially Micro-Manipulation since that is what he believed was the key to wall climbing. But since she didn’t have it, then it obviously wasn’t a requirement. It might be what is allowing him to alter the follicles in his body, then that would make sense.

Then what should Lucy take? Obviously not pigment manipulation. He didn’t know if she could fully utilize Micro-Manipulation since it took a lot of investigation to understand how it works, then again she might be better at it than him.

Hardening sounds like it might fit. Either it could give her spikes to dissuade attackers or maybe she could harden hair around her into extra armor. He had been thinking of those possibilities ever since he shot out all his hair and found out he could grow hair anywhere on his body now. Hair armor, it might help.

With Lucy sitting on his shoulder back at the camp, he tried to explain the different options to her and see if she had any input. He wasn’t quite sure she understood him but he got an image in his mind of her with fangs growing out of different parts of her body so he took that to mean hardening.

The other evolution was for his Identify skill. It leveled up when he offhandedly Identified a firefly on their way back to camp.

He had been waiting for this one for a while, he knew the kind of evolution he wanted and just hoped it was there.

**Alert** New Skill Evolution Available Choose one Higher Sentient Mundane Skills

There was another Higher Sentient evolution that just solidified his thoughts about how they classified people. That would probably simply let him Identify people like Kai and such. Not much use to him right now, but maybe he’ll reset it and get that later.

Mundane? Maybe being able to Identify non-magical items? Would that work on rocks and minerals as well? Would be good for a crafter.

This was the one he was hoping for a way to see their skill list. With his skill Mimicry, there wasn’t even a choice, he had to choose Skills.

**Alert** Identify has gained the evolution Skills

He looked at Lucy and Identified her.

Lucifer the ManaWeaver Level: 5 Current mood: Excited

A young manaweaver that has left her native brood to travel the world and see new things.

Quicker and less aggressive than male manaweavers.

Fiercely protective of the ones she cares about, she will not back down in the defense of others.

While she can still produce webbing, she can not infuse it with mana until she is more mature.

Age: 29 days

Highest attribute: Vitality

Highest skills: Hydraulic Assist, Poison Fang Mastery, Hair Manipulation.

A grin appeared on his face as he read her description, he hadn’t looked at it in a while through the lens of Identify. It was interesting how as she grew and had new experiences it would change. He was happy her personality was coming through.

Though he was a little disappointed, he could only see three skills. It was still significantly better than before and should help him level Mimicry a lot easier.

He knows Mana absorption is probably one of them, but what is the Spell Seeker’s third-highest skill?