Syl

Chapter 74: Into the Mine

I was so eager to get away that I forgot to look at my gains from that fight. I peered over the notifications.

I was very pleased with [Evasion] finally gaining a level, and both Delta and Epsilon closed the gap. Only gaining a single level in class felt a little disappointing, especially since it had no new revelations. I was feeling the newfound difficulty of raising my race levels now.

Thankfully, there were no further distractions by the time I reached the mining camp, which looked mostly deserted except for a few rather jumpy-looking guards. I introduced myself and said I was with the guild here to exterminate some monsters. After they got over their initial shock, they looked thankful and relieved that someone was finally going to deal with the monsters.

"Usually, the spiders and elementals get cleaned out pretty regularly, but ever since the salamander moved in, they've been growing in numbers." One of the guards explained.

"No worries. I'll be dealing with it." I said, flashing my Silver tag, which caused them to look very happy, "Please don't let anyone else come down. I don't want them accidentally getting caught in my magic."

"Of course, Miss Syl, thank you for the warning." They saluted, and after awkwardly copying the gesture, I entered the mine.

My [Dark Vision] immediately kicked in, and I also traded [Nature Commune] for [Thermal Vision]. Once I got a bit deeper, I'd throw away my disguise. I also blanked my name and class, as it felt like as long as I didn't blank everything on my profile, I'd be gaining at least some benefit from my mimicry levels. If my class was more generic, it might have been fine to leave it alone. When I got a bit deeper, I withdrew the orcs and devoured them. Like the other humanoid monsters, [Dissection] was silent in valuable parts, and I only kept a single right ear from each orc to show the adventurers guild.

The orc profile suggested they were on par with a hobgoblin, indicating that they spawned naturally as a higher monster tier. I could only assume that was similar to how yellow slime could spawn without originating from the lowest blue slime. I noticed they could not take [Enhanced Intellect] and chuckled to myself a little, as it felt like a severe understatement. The reason for their indifferent attitude to my attacks was they had a racial trait [Pain Suppression], which I had no desire to purchase, but I may borrow it when I decided to work on leveling [Defy Death].

When I entered a larger chamber, I felt like I could finally test out wings. I grabbed the wings from the Blood Bugs, enlarged them, and reinforced them with mana. When I didn't achieve liftoff, I added an extra pair of wings and reduced my size somewhat. After some trial and error, I managed to get a half-decent hover going. While I was glad to finally have some success with the idea I had so long ago, my gut told me I should seek out stronger wings if I wanted to go higher.

Now that I had satisfied my curiosity with the wings, I turned into the Venom Barbed Badger. I was tempted to use the bear matriarch as the base form, but I felt like I might struggle to fit in the mineshafts, and the badger also opened up digging options. I swapped out the badger nose for a wolf one and added some rocky hide for defense, then spawned two tendrils and formed them into the Blade Wolf tail. I identified myself, curious about what it would even show.

'Simon had said that I should be able to manipulate it more since I have a mimicry-related trait... He didn't and could already block his name, so I should be able to do more.'

I experimented a little while wandering down one of the passages with a scent. My goal was to remove my name, as monsters normally didn't have one, so if I was mimicking one, I should be able to remove it rather than block it. I kept mentally poking and prodding my name while trying to mentally prompt it by thinking thoughts of hiding or removing it. I felt like I was on the verge of something, but maybe I needed a bit more levels. One thing I did manage while experimenting with my class was changing its display.

'Okay, that's not my mage level. Is it adding my spellcaster levels together or something? Well, it's at least better than showing something obscure like Shadowcaster.'

I made a mental note to revisit my name at another point. Meanwhile, in the caves, it appeared I was following a trail for the spiders as I started to find plenty of webbing. The first spider I came across was big and hissed at me as I approached it.

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I launched a [Fire Arrow] at it, causing it and its surrounding web to light up in a blaze. It screeched and flailed as it burnt to death. I pulled out my necklace from my storage with a tendril and checked my quest progress.

'Okay, so that's an iron-rank monster.' I thought and redeposited my necklace. I was glad it seemed to keep track of my quests despite being in my [Core Storage]. I ate the smoldering remains of the spider, and [Dissection] seemed very disappointed in a lack of harvestable parts.

Regrettably, this spider didn't have a new poison or venom for me to sample, despite its profile hinting at it, but I looked forward to whatever the Bronze or Silver-ranked spiders would have. [Wallcrawling] didn't seem all that useful, considering I could already do that by manipulating my slime adhesion, but at least I gained [Web Spinning]. I killed two more spiders before discovering a new one, which looked slightly smaller and more streamlined.

'Well, that's quite a mouthful of a name.'

It was remarkably jittery and bounced between the wall, roof, and floor. I imagined it must have a decent [Evasion] skill. During one of its micro-jumps, it launched a globule of venom at me, which landed directly on my face. I had to give it points for accuracy, but it was for nothing as I consumed it with slime.

'Another one for the collection.'

It kept jumping and spitting at me. I tried firing flaming arrows at it, but my prediction of it having invested in [Evasion] was proving true. Eventually, it seemed to think I must have been affected by its ailment as it moved in closer and started hopping at me, then jumping away. I noticed that it had little micro legs at the front that unfurled into tiny scythe-like arms that it was slicing at me with.

I thought of overwhelming it with an oppressive number of flaming arrows but opted to gather mana and cast [Nova] for its first real offensive use. The spider must have sensed that the attack was coming, as when I completed the spell, it retreated with a jump but was still caught in the blast radius of the empowered spell. It shrieked and flailed on the floor, and I finished it off by grabbing it with tendrils and dragging it into consumption range.

The profile updated, and looking at my quest counter, this counted as a Bronze-rank monster. [Dissection] finally had some work to do and harvested the small little scythe blades from its frontward legs. The evolution path was interesting, as it came from a different branch than the giant spider and then further evolved. I also read through the poison's description, which was a nasty piece of work. The simplest way to describe it was a lethal version of my paralysis poison. I would have thought paralyzing an opponent was enough already to leave someone helpless, but apparently, this spider had other plans.

I kept exploring the tunnel when my mana sight caught something in one of the walls. I finally got to put my digging claws to work and put them to good use, revealing a fist-sized nugget of silver. I gave it a quick identification and appraisal to answer my question.

I had to resist my desire to absorb it, as I was concerned that it wouldn't retroactively apply to the silver slime trait if I got it later. I reluctantly deposited it and continued my journey through the webbing, occasionally burning it away with [Kindle].

I could hear the sounds of combat echoing through the tunnel. I wondered if the different spider species were fighting one another or if it was another monster. The wolves worked together, but I wasn't sure if spiders held that same camaraderie, especially between different species branches.

I shrunk my form to a smaller, stealthier size and let [Vanish] do its work. The first monster that I noticed was another jumping spider, lobbing its blobs at something. I also saw the unevolved form of the jumping spider, and instead of lobbing poison, it fired webs in a similar manner. I slowed my pace and sneaked forward more to notice what they were fighting - a pile of rocks.

'So that's a rock elemental. Guess the spiders aren't happy with its presence.'

Luke wasn't joking when he said they were slow. By the time it completed swinging its rocky limb, the spiders were nowhere near the point of impact. The strength behind the blow was terrifying, shattering the rocky floor with ease. A few giant spiders were hanging from the ceiling and shooting webs at the elemental, seemingly answering my question about them working together.

While they were all distracted, I decided to try an experiment. I lowered tendrils of slime and snaked my way into the room, and while they progressed further in, I started using [Vaporize Slime] and leaking ethanol gas throughout the room. I was tempted to use one of my other poisons, but it would only affect the spiders since the elemental seemed to be shrugging off whatever poisons the spiders were lobbing at it without any care. I kept my tendrils the same color as the floor, and that, combined with [Vanish], seemed to prevent the spiders or the elemental from noticing me.

I continued to watch the fight with amusement while I laid my trap, only occasionally moving a tendril out of the way of a spider's landing zone. When I felt like the room was primed I rapidly formed an empowered [Fire Arrow] using all my [Sub-Cores] and flung it at the golem as quickly as possible.

Before I could even think that this might have been a bad idea, the room erupted into an explosion of flame that would've made Dewi drool with envy. If my ears were real, I think they would have burst. The mineshaft trembled, rocks fell to the floor, and I had a moment of panic where I thought I might be burying myself alive, but then I remembered I could dig myself free with [Acid Slime].

Notifications flooded my mind as I weathered the blast. I was extremely thankful I wasn't stupid enough to enter the room, as my tendrils directly in the room had been scattered to the winds from the shockwave.