Some time passes and the other snakes come out of their caves. I follow suit and arrive behind the leader. Arriving at the lakeside I start drinking, and lay down to absorb the mana, all the while not letting my guard down. Eventually it's time to go back, I didn't gain any increase in my mana so I think 42 is the cap on what this lake will give me. On another note the snakes do not suspect me.

I end up going out to the lake with the snakes three times before the mice start to calm down and spread out at the lake again. I haven't been able to sleep, because if I end up staying asleep that might make the snakes suspicious of me. Instead I’ve been practicing [Thunder Clad] and [Lightning Boost], they are both skills that are continuously active so I need to practice moving my body to the fullest while my speed is improved by lightning or incorporating the lightning from [Thunder Clad] into my attacks. On the fourth day of infiltrating the snakes I can begin the second phase of my plan. Phase one was getting used to acting as a snake, getting used to [Thunder Clad] and waiting for the mice to calm down. Phase two is causing a war between the different monsters left in the area, like what I accidentally did in the first cave area. [Stealthing] into my base form, I move near the largest gathering of mice, once behind them, I transform back into the snake, and start to swallow the mice whole(like a snake would!).

 I’m able to get three of them before being attacked from all sides. Using the snakes skill [Thunder Clad] lightning flickers along my skin, different from [Lightning Boost] this skill is able to inflict lighting damage to those I come in contact with. This is able to stop some of the mice attacks while I run away, but four are still left hanging on me trying to bite huge chunks off, my scales are able to stop this but the tiny wounds they cause are starting to add up. Ignoring the pain I slither towards the leaders cave, and hiss as loud as I can. The leader and subordinate bolt out of their respective caves and throw the mice off me. Seeing how injured I am, the leader's eyes fill with rage, as a slightly threatening aura spreads throughout the cave, the mice seemingly afraid, still rush over as a group to fight. The leader's eyes flash as a foreign will fills my mind, directing my action discreetly, I can resist, but that would break my act, deciding to follow, the leader directs me behind him and the other snake, as they take the brunt of the flood. 

The 6+ mice that are left all start to take small bites of the two snakes in front of me, enough that they can still get away without being seriously harmed. The snakes light up with a familiar glow as I am directed to join the fray and active [Thunder Clad], I comply. 

*ding*

The three of us … Well, two of us were able to catch all the mice with the leader and me being heavily injured and the other snake dying from the wave of mice.We both retired to our caves for the night to rest. The plan worked perfectly, now all that is left is to deal with the leader, hope I can get whatever skill he used to me during the fight. While thinking happy thoughts I shift to my base form and leave the cave, moving to my burrow under the bolder. I have no need to stay disguised as a snake anymore and I don't want to risk the leader doing something to me in its injured state. 

{

Name: NULL

Lv: 9

Hp: 28/28

Mp: 40/42

Base form: Black Fox Demon Beast (Chimera(demon))

Combat form: Gray wolf Demon Beast

Species absorbed:Raven Demon Beast, Flaming Phoenix Demon Beast, Bull Demon Beast, Boar Demon Beast, Python Demon Beast

Skills: Stealth, Fire Rush,Fireball,Lighting Blast,Lightning Boost,Thunder Clad

Innate Skills: Mana control, Language Translation(demon)(passive), Devour, Transform

Titles: Reincarnator, Second Chimera, Chaos Conductor

}

Getting up from my rest, and looking at my stats I can see I leveled again during the fight yesterday. My hp is full after a full night's rest, but my mana couldn't fully recover after the strain of continuously activating [Thunder Clad], unlike [Stealth] it costs mana to use!

My hp and mana are full so time to kill the leader!

Crawling out of my burrow with [Stealth] active, near the edge of the lake I see the leader resting. 

He still looks as battered as yesterday, so I guess my recovery rate is abnormal? Since I don't have to worry about the other monsters I can enjoy my fight with the strongest in this area. Moving into the snake's blind spot, I [Transform] into my combat form, and use [Fire Rush] to claw at the leader, pushing him into the lake. Rising to the surface his eyes are red as the aura I felt yesterday returns. In response, I shoot a [Fireball] in his face, before It hits the snake active [Thunder Clad] and the spell is snuffed out right as it hits.

I’m surprised the skill can break apart magic, but still confident because this doesn't change the battle plan I thought up to fight the leader. Sending mana to my eyes, I can now see the massive amount of mana running through the snakes body like veins until the channels release the mana on the snakes skin where it turns into lightning. However the mana looks different than the lighting mana I see around the crystals. I will have to satisfy my curiosity after the fight, as I should be able to feel the pheromone better when I activate the skill while sensing the mana around and inside my body. Most of the lighting generated is scattered into the lake water, so the snake has to pump enough mana into the skill to supercharge to achieve the normal effects, or maybe the skill only cancels out spells by supercharging it? The snake now aware of the disadvantage it's in, tries to climb out of the lake, but I keep shooting fireballs, forcing it to keep [Thunder Clad] up and stay still. Now it's a game to see who's mana runs out first and since the snake is wasting so much mana to keep the skill active I should have no problems winning the fight. 

…

…

…

After 6 fire balls the 7th once hits and the snake takes the first damage of the fight, besides the surprise attack. I only have 5 mana left, but I won't need it. The snake slowly gets out of the water and slumps down. Seems like exhausting all your mana will leave you in a ‘burned out’ state. Walking over to the snake, I growl at it, no response except its eyes flick open, not with hate but this time with fear. Staring into those eyes I meticulously start the process of grinding the snake's head from its body, after the task is done I use [Devour] and find out my hopes were not in vain.

The skill the leader gave me is called [Guide], from what I experienced and the name it looks like a skill that will allow my to guide my allies thoughts during a fight to help with coordination, but I wonder if the skill can be used for disrupting my enemies during a fight, I will have to test it later when I find some weak ass monsters. Let's take a quick rest, even though the fight was one of my easiest in this cave segment I'm still exhausted from using up most of my mana. 

Laying down I start to absorb mana from my surroundings as practice until my mp is full. 

...

The absorption rate got faster with one mp per minute. Good enough for now. 

My mp is finally full so it's time for my favorite activity, training my skills! This is a much better hobby than fighting and I have so much to figure out after this fight! First I need to look more into how skills and mana flow in the body. Focusing on my core shows me the origin of my mana so let's look at that for now. I activate [Thunder clad] while viewing my core(of course i'm already in combat form). Mana flows out of my core and is arranged into a geometric pattern that looks similar to the runes around where I was summoned except 1000 times more complex. In fact it hurts my head so I'm going to stop looking at it. More importantly after the symbol is created it is linked up to my core by a constant stream of mana and five branches of the strange looking mana I saw in the snake before coming out of it and flowing out into the void I see around me. 

Now for a switch in perspective, I focus on my surrounding ideas and I can sense the world around me. ‘Looking’ at my body I can see the five streams extending from my core and moving around my body like a circle before they expel the mana out on the surface of my body in different locations.   

While I don't know how the symbol changes my mana into the strange mana, nor how that is different from lightning mana, I do know that right now I can't mess with that because it might do more harm than good if i make a mistake. Right now I can test what putting different amounts of mana will do to the ‘mana pathways’. First supercharging the skill, super changing the skill causes the symbol to get more complicated and the flowing of mana into it becomes more chaotic like a raging river, it also adds a sixth mana pathway. Decreasing the mana sent to the skill has the flowing mana into it become thinner but the symbols does not change, and the mana pathways decrease every time a certain amount of mana doesn't flow into the skill. The lighting with one mana path is only covering my left paw so I at least know how to decrease the mana cost for the skill if I want to focus only on attack and not cover my whole body.Now for that part that could hurt. 

“Huuuuh”

I sigh before the moment to get rid of my nervousness and attempt to change the mana path leading to my left foot to my right foot, after a mental nudge the change as if insulting my worry happens naturally…

Becoming more confident I change to a mana path to all different places on my body, my back , legs, tail, and face. Increasing the amount turns out the same result, and the better I get the quicker the change happens. Getting into the flow I lose track of time while practicing, testing out other skills, seeing the symbols change, trying to switch the path while moving before it becomes natural and I can do it in combat. While practicing I realize to my shock that not just my proficiency in changing the mana paths has gotten better. I can also move the mana in a four foot range around me, without getting into that special state, but to move the mana I still need to be able to see it, unlike my mana pathways(since i can't see them while moving anyway, but i can see mana with my eyes).

I didn't get a skill from it so this must be included in the [Mana Control] skill. Looking into the lake at myself in my base form I realize again how small I am being slightly smaller than a cat… I decide to absorb mana from around me before I explore the area more as it's faster than drinking from the lake and relax from my training. Maybe sleeping is a better hobby of mine that training cause I spend the most time doing that since I came here, is that even a hobby? Do I need to sleep? Thinking of stupid question like that I wait for my mana to fill up.