The stone platform that served as my ticket to the next floor was racing down a stone shaft. I used the moment of respite to once again review my status, familiarizing myself with my new abilities and refreshing my memory of skills I hadn’t used in a while. My new restoration spell would come in handy since I’d been severely lacking a healing ability while in combat. Sure, I could heal myself by eating, but pulling out a monster to eat mid-fight wasn’t exactly a good idea.

It wasn’t exactly cost-effective right now, but I’d bet on it getting better once it ranked up. I also went through the P2W shop to purchase the staple items, since they’d refreshed upon my evolution. Which meant I was now five skill-, attribute-, and mutation points richer. As always, the price had increased slightly, but at this point, it barely made a dent in my savings.

I quickly assigned my five attribute points to Luck, having decided to finally work towards the quest I had since the second layer. Reaching a score of one hundred shouldn’t be too hard. I was admiring my attribute scores when I was suddenly assaulted by an influx of light. Since that could only mean that I had arrived at the fifth layer, I excitedly went to the edge of the platform to check out what theme this layer was going for. What I saw, was blue. Lots, and lots of blue.

A massive ocean spread out in all directions, the uniform blue only disturbed by the occasional island. Most of them were mere dots on the horizon, but there were a few of them close enough for me to inspect. One of them seemed to have an active volcano on it, while the rest were just luscious, green paradises, with the occasional mountain and sandy beaches.

They looked to be fantastic vacation spots, provided they weren’t completely infested by monsters, that is. I could only assume that the ocean itself was teeming with aquatic monsters, big and small, which would make traveling between the islands an absolute nightmare.

I directed my gaze straight down at the rapidly approaching island that would be my landing spot. Two mountains were at the opposing ends of the island, a small strip in the center low enough for the water to separate the island into two parts. It all resembled a large figure eight, palm trees and other alien-looking plant life warring over every inch of available space, except for the white beach racing the outline of the entire island.

It was difficult to see any of the monsters inhabiting the island due to the thick foliage, but a few of them were chilling on the beach. Though, I couldn’t make out any details before the platform got too low, robbing me of my vantage point. The platform set down smack dab in the middle of the island, the only open space available. The water came within an inch of flooding the platform before it came to a stop. Thankfully the water was barely knee-deep for a human, so it was easy to see that there were no monsters lying in wait to catch unsuspecting descenders.

I took a quick look around, finding that no monsters were nearby, seemingly. Of course, there could be some that were camouflaged, or buried in the sand, but I had no way of finding them short of bombing the entire beach. The prospect of doing so seemed like a fun time, but I didn’t want to piss off the entire island before knowing what kind of monsters I’d be up against.

I took my time, taking full advantage of the protection the platform provided me with. The monsters on this island seemed to prefer the forests, only a sparse few venturing out on the beach. It was all pretty suspicious, and I eventually found out why. A massive dinosaur-looking fish monster rocketed out of the water and snatched a massive crab from the beach. It would appear that the aquatic population wasn’t content with killing each other in the water. It made sense that most monsters would keep well away from the shoreline.

I knew the island I was on was fairly large, but I couldn’t make out anything more than the rough lay of the land when I came down. The mountains beckoned to me, demanding I climb them and use them as a vantage point in order to get a better idea of where I was. I picked one of the two at random, giving the empty beach around me another look before deciding that I didn’t want to risk crossing it.

A void portal appeared shortly after and I jumped through, emerging at the tree line a few hundred meters away. With my mana reserves, I could’ve just jumped to the peak of the mountain, but I wanted to do some scouting and fighting on the way there. For now, I jumped into the nearest tree, hiding among the large leaves as well as I could.

As soon as I’d touched the ground of the fifth layer, the system had updated my evolution goals and I wanted to check them out quickly before going further. They’d have substantial influence over how I’d tackle this floor, after all.

Evolution Goals:

Reach level 20

Bonus Objectives:

Defeat the island guardians of three different islands. (0/3)

Retrieve a deep sea gem from an underwater temple.

Reaching level twenty and defeating the island guardians should be doable. I doubted that an island guardian was more powerful than a hunter. Getting a deep sea gem on the other hand… I’d probably have to give up on that one. Sure, I had gills now, and I could swim, but it was highly likely that the ocean was filled to the brim with monsters that were not only better swimmers but better underwater fighters.

Plus, the ocean was absolutely humongous, and finding a temple could prove to be close to impossible. Unless I found a map that showed me the exact position of a temple, my chances of finding one seemed pretty slim. And again, I’d probably be ripped to shreds before I could get to the temple anyway. Judging by the huge dino-fish I’d seen earlier, going for a swim would spell disaster.

I decided that unless an incredibly convenient opportunity presented itself, I’d just kill three guardians and then leave for the next layer. I was already a lot stronger than I needed to be to survive on this layer, so needlessly extending my stay here was pointless.

Happy with my decisions, I jumped off the tree and started toward the mountain, taking care to not run headfirst into a monster. It didn’t take too long until I crossed paths with another island-bound monster. Spotting it had been rather easy since it couldn’t help but displace any trees in its way. I activated my void cloak and got closer to take a look, finding an honest to god cyclops! It stood at least five meters tall and had massive limbs, with which it carried an uprooted tree, most likely to use as a club. Its skin was gray, and its mouth was flanked by some sizable tusks, over which sat the iconic single eye.

Berserker Cyclops (T5)

Contrary to its bigger cousin, the giant cyclops, this type of monster focused more on concentrating its muscle mass into a smaller frame. Although they don’t seem as strong as their bigger counterparts, travelers are encouraged to not underestimate these creatures. Their intimidation factor might be lower, but they more than make up for their smaller size with a whole slew of battle-focused abilities.

I happily looked at the system window that told me exactly what I was looking at. Archive of Asphon really was a good skill after all. Also, that huge thing was considered small! I’d love to see one of these giant cyclops guys. This berserker variation was already giving the hunters a run for their money, so the giant ones truly had to be… well, giant.

I watched the guy lumber through the trees for a bit, his bulk causing him quite a bit of trouble. Then again, he was pushing aside the trees like they were twigs. It really spoke to how dangerous the ocean was, if even a behemoth like this was choosing to stay inland. After a while of recreational monster watching, I decided it was time to check how I measured up to a monster of the fifth layer.

What I was really curious about, was benchmarking my poison. I’d pushed it to tier six, so I should be able to dispatch most monsters on this layer just by sticking them with some needles. I cast two poison assassinations, the small skull icons popping up next to the cyclops’ nametag, and kept following it around. It didn’t take too long for the poison to show signs of working, as the cyclops visibly started to slow down and stumble. It was on alert now, trying to look for whatever was attacking, and when it couldn’t find me started smashing things at random.

I made sure to stay well enough away from the business end of its makeshift club, and after a while of rampaging, the giant collapsed, shaking the earth. It wasn’t quite dead yet, but clearly on its last leg. It was breathing heavily and coughing, actually looking quite pitiful. Then, after puking all over the floor, finally succumbed to the poison.

You have killed a T5 Berserker Cyclops Lv. 5

You have been awarded 35’000 XP

You have been awarded 150 Data Points

And I didn’t even have to re-apply the poison! I had a feeling like this proved that I wouldn’t have any issues on this floor, but I needed more data points. Like, how would my void magic measure up to the monsters? Would poison spears and bombs suffice to fend off any attackers? I had a feeling that due to my new passive, my magic would hit everything like a truck, but I still tried to rein in that ever-present urge telling me to just go blindly rampage around and level up.

No, I was “intelligent”. I’d at least scout the area before going on a madness-induced killing spree. You know, like a civilized person.

So I continued on my journey toward, and then up the mountain, dispatching monsters on the way with different spells. An exploding hedgehog, a stone elemental, a giant, miasma-spewing tiger, some weird amalgamation of hands, and yet another berserker cyclops were all among the victims of my research. I’d won over all of them quite easily, making me feel like the king of the world. It was getting harder and harder to not let myself go out of control, after all, the chances of meeting an asshole voidling on this island were near zero. Right?

I so desperately wanted to let loose, but I had a few things to confirm first. First off, I’d arrived at the peak of the mountain. The higher up I’d gotten, the fewer monsters I encountered. I was half expecting needing to fight off swarms of avian monsters that liked to hang out on the top, but there was just empty space waiting for me. Not in the mood for complaining about not having to fight, I took a look around.

The mountain was maybe around two kilometers high if I had to guess. This put it among the smaller mountains, almost going back into hill territory even, but hey, it provided a nice platform to see the whole island anyway. Now that I was at the top, I could see that the other mountain was a bit higher still. Maybe two and a half kilometers. It was hard to make out due to the distance, but I could see something moving around on the rather flat peak. If I had to guess, it was probably this island's guardian.

Target acquired.

I could see several streams of water coming down both of the mountains, most likely providing a source of fresh water for the monsters on the island. This made me think about whether or not aquatic monsters were bound to either salt or freshwater like most of the water-bound animals were on Earth. Probably not, since I didn’t see any viable places for them to go aside from the massive ocean.

I tried to figure out which island was the closest to this one. None of them were close enough to risk a swim, and while I wasn’t willing to risk a superpowered void jump, it would probably be fine to void jump way up high and then glide over. I had a lot more mana now, so shenanigans like that were definitely possible.

Next, I kept an eye out for any interesting places on my current island. The island consisted of two mountains, a beach that went around the entire island, and the rest was covered in tropical forest. And then there was that weird bit in the middle where I arrived. The ocean cut through in a shallow separation line, making the whole thing look like an eight from above.

I took another look around but found nothing of interest. Happy with my little investigation, I was looking forward to letting loose a bit and just cutting through the opposition like butter, but before I did that, there was one last thing I had to do. I’d been putting it off for way too long already, and it was high time that I took care of it.

It was finally time to buy some stuff from my new skill tree!