Ch.13 New Grounds

The weight of the previous day's interaction still fresh on their mind, Cinis went out to hunt slimes. This day was surprisingly uneventful in which Cinis, along with the repetition took comfort. Yet the day still dragged on. Some slimes seemed to have come back but it was still far from the original population. At the end of the day, with the inability, or rather unwillingness to go anywhere close to the dragon, Cinis didn’t go to hunt rabbits and instead directly went to sleep. This same procedure repeated for a few days yet there was no sign of movement from the dragon while Cinis reaped the benefits of dedicating days to hunting slimes.

“Level Up - 3 Free Stat Points gained”

“Stats gained: 3 Constitution (CON); 2 Magic (MAG)

“Gained Skill: [Lesser Holy Resistance]”

“Skills: [Lesser Flame Resistance], [Lesser Ice Resistance], [Lesser Plant Resistance], [Lesser Dark Resistance], [Lesser Poison Resistance], [Lesser Earth Resistance] and [Lesser Holy Resistance] have assimilated into Skill: [Lesser Magical Resistance] due to similarity”

‘That took a lot more Skills to do than the physical one, I guess there are far more ways that magic can hurt you.’

‘But now even the prospect of skills are gone from the slimes, and it’s too slow to farm them for levels. I think it really is time to move on.’

‘Downstream you mean?’

‘Yes.’

As it was still only around the time the sun stood highest Cinis decided to start travelling immediately. On the way to the river they assigned the stat points they had received.

‘I would put two into Magic and one into Agility.’

‘That sounds good, maybe you won’t have to worry about your MP capacity anymore.’

‘Exactly. And I chose just a little Agility to make escaping easier. It might also help if we need to travel a long distance to find new hunting grounds.’

By now Cinis had arrived at the river. Seeing the deceptively calm surface they were nearly tempted to travel by swimming. But they knew the violent streams below the surface that would rip them away from any hold they could get and pull their body underwater in a fraction of a second. Due to this they simply walked along the side, concealed in the reeds.

After some time Cinis realised they had arrived at the place where they had burnt the reeds. There were already a few new shoots poking out of the ground, it seemed that magical plants grew quickly. Not that Cinis was particularly aware of how quickly plants grow. But this patch soon passed and Cinis found themselves at the place where they finally got out of the water. From this point on they had no Idea what was coming beyond the visible distance. What they could see from there was nothing impressive. It seemed that the river stretched off into the distance for quite some time and that, at some point, it curved. Yet it still disappeared behind the horizon.

‘Should we split off from the river? It doesn’t seem like there is anything along it.’

‘No, the river is a good way to tell where we came from. If we abandon it we won’t be able to go back.’

‘But why would we go back?’

Cinis fell silent. They weren't sure why they thought that they would return after all they had implicitly discussed that they would leave due to there being no benefits to staying. Yes, They could abandon the river. There really was no reason not to.

‘I guess we can. What direction do you propose?’

‘I think we should just split off in a straight line somewhere into that direction.’

Cinis felt a mental nudge pointing them to a forest that was visible in the distance.

‘Good, we had a good experience with a forest. I think we can accomplish something there.’

They split off off the path the river took at a near 90 degree angle and went towards the forest. The way to the forest was a plain one, a field of grass that went just above Cinis’ head. It did hinder their vision a bit, but since Cinis could easily overcome the problem this posed, by stretching their head up and above the grass they did not lose their way. Every now and then they looked and corrected their path if they had gotten it wrong. The tall grass made them uneasy, it seemed too little effort for an enemy to ambush them. But Cinis was wary and had released Aiden to take a vantage point up in the air. And to almost no surprise Aiden soon spotted a shadow that approached Cinis.

‘Hey Cinis, Ambush from directly behind you!’

‘Cinis noticeably tensed up, but relaxed quickly enough as to not scare the predator off. Hunting was what Cinis had come for after all. Instead they prepared ten needles of dark flame, hiding them in front of their body and waiting for Aidens’ notice of the thing attacking.

‘Now!’

Cinis leapt to the side, leaving the ambusher to tumble into the needles that had been left in the wake of its jump. This seemed to aggravate it and it turned to look at Cinis. Now that Cinis was able to get a good look at it it seemed to be a kind of large cat. Approaching Cinis in length even. Its body was completely black. It was likely to be a predator that usually hunted at night, but Cinis could see that it was incredibly thin. It seemed to be starved to the point as to not follow its preferred and beneficial hunting times. Cinis was not sure if Aiden could have spotted the cat if they chose to traverse the field at night. One of its eyes was closed and seemed to have been injured by one of the needles.

The cat seemed to have oriented itself and was now preparing for another leap at Cinis. Yet the ambush had already failed and the advantage had been lost so Cinis could easily evade and attack with the needles. Some they sent at the uninjured eye and some at its legs to offset its balance. This seemed to work and now it was Cinis that leapt at it in return. However during Cinis’ jump they noticed that the beast was rapidly snapping back its head, its sharp teeth on course to meet Cinis neck instead of the other way around. Cinis was barely able to put one of their legs in front and the thing bit down on it at nearly the exact same time as Cinis on its neck. The force amplified by Cinis’ own, the bite went down to bone but the beast let go quickly as its body went limp. This took off a good chunk of Cinis’ HP 44 to be exact and the bleeding was sure to cause some additional damage in the future. If any other were around then this could cause complications. Especially if the limping wasn’t resolved quickly. Now Cinis was simply exhausted and nearly slept right then and there but Aiden, after absorbing the body, went searching for somewhere more safe. And they were in luck as they found an abandoned burrow that fit Cinis. Now in safety Cinis looked at their notifications but there was nothing that they had gained from that fight. The cat-like monster likely wasn’t quite strong enough to guarantee stat or skill gain on first absorption. After this Cinis remembered nearly nothing as they drifted away into sleep.