Alice was beginning to get bored. Even if she hadn't been waiting for that long, she had run out of things to do, she could only fail at earth magic for so long before getting bored. She had already set up shelter and prepared for the night, but until night came she needed something else to do. To save herself from boredom, Alice materialised a floating ball of light and did her best to have it dance around in the air, she tried changing its shape and colour as well. It was kind of like playing with dolls, boring. Alice started walking about, being extremely careful not to lose her impromptu campsite; She really did not like the thought of getting lost twice, in the same day. Alice didn't get too far before she heard more rustling in the trees ahead of her. Alice, now a bit more fearful than before, turned right back around and started walking to her campsite. There was no point risking her life to stave of boredom.

There was more rustling. Closer this time. Alice could have sworn she heard some skittering and hissing mixed into it as well. Alice sped up. She was nearing the point of running at this point but she kept her light lingering far behind her in the hopes of confusing any potential predators, a useless endeavor. A horrifying shriek pierced the air and a wave of mana soon followed. As it rumbled through the air like a roaring thunder, her light was snuffed out before she felt an intense sense of disgust and terror. It was so bad she would have emptied her stomach right then and there if she wasn’t too scared to stop running. She didn't even realise she had started running. It didn't take her long to realise this was probably a fear effect, and while Alice had heard of monsters that had them, she had always thought the stories had exaggerated it. Unfortunately for her, no words could describe it even-semi accurately, she just felt she had to run, far, far away.

Considering Alice was running through the dark with a mental effect on her, she had done well to stay on her feet for this long. Until she wasn’t. Her feet came out from under her and she fell to the ground face first. Her tumble was anything but elegant, and though it had always seemed the monster was always right behind her, it was now close enough for Alice to feel the sinister aura emanating from it. Alice turned to face it, and saw she was a full 8 meters away from it still. It slowly stalked forward seeming to salivate at the sight of her. With nothing but fear in her mind, Alice pressed the panic button , [Eyes of Fate]. She had named it the panic button in part because it was the best response to a difficult situation, and because it made her panic even harder.

Alice stared down the horrifying creature with it’s eight gangly legs, each the thickness of an arm and twice her height in length. It’s legs supported a bulky carriage that looked bulbous and deformed. It’s many eyes were each a different colour, and with the way eyes seemed to sprout on it like leaves did on a tree, it created a rainbow coloured, pulsating, cancerous looking creature whose very presence seemed an affront to reality.

A fight looked likely, it also looked hopeless, but Alice understood her panic button would only delay what was coming. Alice realised she could very easily die here, but to minimise the chances of such a thing she began gathering as much information as she could.

The description from [Eyes of Fate] was:

A mana-corrupted glow-web, toying with it's prey.

Alice knew that glow-webs were spiders whose webs let off light to attract insects. Mana-corrupted was a new term thoug, but it still gave useful information that she could use.

She also tried using [Basic Identification] on it, not expecting it to work, and miraculously got a result. Though there was a noticable delay from the skill, she still got the information she wanted.

Thia was bad. Incredibly bad. That level range had her outmatched at the lowest and royally screwed at its highest. The stat total was even worse, and while she wasn’t too sure what the stat total meant, her prior experience told her it was either how many stats above her it was, or how many stats it had total. Alice could only pray it was the latter, though in either case the situation was entirely hopeless. Her stats totalled to just under 150. This thing was many times stronger, caused status effects, and had home field advantage. Her only consolation was that it was playing around with her, if she could exploit this she could turn the situation around. The only question was: How?