Following the Wall deeper in the cave, the terrain changed to stone jungles.
Literally.
Stalagmites, narrow yet tall boulders, cliffs, and crags were packed densely enough to obstruct sight but too sharp and pointy for routine jumps between them. Alice liked this place, having judged big level 10 and above monsters must hate it for the lack of space.
An hour had passed since her little cultivation session. The girl had yet to kill any prey. Saw and heard quite a few; her hunt mastery skill's instincts had shifted her priorities to studying the terrain, escape routes and monsters themselves first. Alice's endurance was high, but not unlimited: surely a few more battles would drain her.
Plus, the girl saw no point in hunting not-evolved monsters. She needed magic stones, and a lot. The alternative was to barricade somewhere in a dungeon and cultivate peacefully for a few days, an attractive perspective indeed. If only monsters sympathized with her cause and assented to stop growing.
Anthill should be close. Eight-legged bastards seemed to conquer half the jungles and were crawling all over it in abundance.
When the scouting was done, Alice chose a big empty glade with several exits.
It reminded her of a ring in her dojo.
You like me taking risks? Fine! I will show you!
Alice struck the ground with the blunt end of her assembled glaive, pumping herself up. Strange primeval ferocity could be read in her eyes, in sharpened cheeks under the mask, in curves of tightly pressed lips. Was it her hidden nature, echoes of the dream, the influence of the dungeon, who knows?
Herself, Alice would have said it was anger towards the system since the moment she had discovered yet another injustice in its logs.
Clatter reached her ears soon and the girl struck the ground again, declaring her presence.
It was a pair of ants, Alice recognized the sound long before two big insects run out into her ring. Low-leveled. The girl looked down on them as they charged at her.
The first fell from a vertical chop, the second followed to the monster's heaven after a following horizontal cut. Their carapaces felt soft. Basic ant specs were falling too far behind.
Alice kicked the insects in an improvised pile. A minute later another ant was ensnared by the girl in a similar manner and joined a cheerful bonfire of blue fire with no heat.
Breathing in mana and sensing its brooks spreading out, the girl nodded to herself. Her plan to attract evolved predators was that simple. It even included some cultivation bonus for a waiting part!
"You're here." Alice opened her eyes. Her blood flurried with adrenalin.
The beast had been creeping quietly yet reacted to the girl's whisper with extreme violence: it pounced with paws and their long saber-like claws spread out.
[Widetooth Tiger Lvl. 7]
Its maw was wide like of a toad, full of razor teeth and dagger fangs; it gave the girl quite a scare. She sidestepped and the tiger landed on a rock's wall, then leaped away from a deliberately slow glaive stab and roared. Two similar roars answered and the tiger grinned very Cheshire, proceeded with circling around the girl.
Alice allowed it: a single tiger was definitely not risky enough for the system. Three on the other hand... Levels seven, eight, nine, she counted calmly when they gathered together and the true hunt began.
The little brother tiger pounced at her first in a fluke, retreating right before the counter strike could blind it in one eye. Two elders took Alice in pincers, acting in concert. The girl slashed out at the righty, span and struck the lefty with the dull end of the glaive with big momentum, stepped back.
Meeting a setback, the big cats returned to their hypnotizing circle walk, but Alice could see their tails moving agitatedly.
"Kitty Kitty Kitty," with a smile, the girl drew an '∞' in the air with the tip of the blade and stepped back to keep all three in sight.
With a roar, the little tiger started an attack again. Now it was a threatening charge Alice had to respond with a decisive stab; her foe demonstrated true cat flexibility by evading it by a backward jump. Two other tigers tried to attack the opening but got terribly surprised when the girl turned and made two fast stabs at them aswell.
Like spear...
Alice slowly stripped off all unnecessary slashes, chops and jumps. With a tiger attack, she would stab back. When a tiger leaped, she would stab at it. When two tigers pounced, she would answer with two stabs. Even if three tigers tried to overrun her she would stab, backstep and stab, stab!
The trio of monsters had no tactics to defeat her and gradually they all engrossed into a strange dance on Alice's improvised ring. When the forth tiger entered the scene, the girl only raised her speed to the limit of endurance.
Breath in, breath out.
Her only thoughts were about keeping the poise, placing legs firmly and never skip a breath! Unnoticed by her, blood energy seeped into her bloodstream, linked to bones and muscles in tacit support.
Her already perfect by human standards senses seemed to sharpen. She didn't even need to look at the tigers anymore, hearing them was enough. It wasn't just Alice's high perception, it was a gradual blending of all her skills, system or nor.
Time passed without a breakthrough for any side and it finally tipped the beasts.
A big cat roared expecially frustratingly behind Alice's back and three roars answered to it. They all stopped their attacks and the girl stood still too, sweat running down her body faster than the dungeon was erasing it.
Roar! A tiger hit the ground with its tail heavily.
Roar! Alice felt with her legs another hit behind.
Roar! Angry and crazy!
Blood sipped out through Alice's fingers, gathered on the glaive. The time had come.
Tap. Tap. Tigers's steps were light, nigh indistinguishable, but the girl heard them clearly, them and rustle of wind as two bodies leaped, one tiger head-on and the other on her back. Tap-tap. The last two beasts charged at her flanks. Smart monsters should have known she would be able to kill one or more in such a collision, but they were done playing it safe.
Two drops of blood essence had gathered at the end of her glaive. Alice turned a bit to see the back tiger with her peripheral vision and suddenly back jumped to meet it.
In a split second, the butt end hit the leaping tiger in the chest.
Burn.
Blood essence released the energy contained in it as ordered. Inside the girl's body, it would have provided her with a boost of power. Outside, uncontrolled, it culminated violently with an explosion! Light and heat were incidental, the explosion was the main dish she treated the beast with!
Without even spilling a mew, the tiger got blasted away and Alice's body control was tested to the fullest as the glaive yanked forward, the shaft grinding away the leather of her gloves. Claws from a side monster reached her legs, incited a sick rasp from armor. Allowing herself to be propelled forward, the girl escaped their reach and crossed the space between her and the beast ahead in an instant!
This tiger did bow like all cats could, attempting to change its flight course. The girl struck with such a force she almost stopped the leaping beast in the middle of the air; the blade had driven in it too fast and too deep.
Alice loosened the grip of her spasming in pain fingers; the momentum was still pushing her forward. She ran two, three meters and then rotated 180 degrees. Two frenzied tigers were storming in. The first arrow pierced the right tiger between its jaws, the second punctured the skull and got winged off, the third scratched the fur.
When other tiger swooped, Alice ducked away, her hand drew three more arrows, placed two on a string and in a flowing movement, she planted both in the tiger's flank. The big cat roared in pain, its feet betrayed the beast when landing.
With an arrow on the bowstring, the girl swept around with a glance but never shot.
The battle had ended.
When Alice pulled her glaive out the dead tiger, the rest were too wounded to resist coup de grace.
The girl felt fatigued and pretty beaten. Fortunately, no new monsters had entered the fun, maybe too afraid of the tiger pack's roars.
Or its destroyer.
Status.
TEMPLATES |
EXP |
Hunter Level 7 | 49,500/63,000 |
... |
-/1000 |
> Battle Points: 1,260->4,020
"Undocumented double battle points for risky battles. I see." Alice nodded and repeated, "I see. Go to hell, system."
This was the little something the girl had noticed during her scouting hour. Her battle points income this day didn't seem quite right after the centipede grand battle, so she rechecked the logs. The math was all over the place, she discovered. Sometimes she would get one amount of bps, sometimes twice it.
What was in common behind double points? Struggle.
Well, it is in the name. Battle points. Bat-freaking-tle.
Lamenting about her poor fate and greedy nature, Alice looted the magic stones and decisively turned her back onto the rich mana the dungeon began to extract from the corpses.
She needed a little break to digest her experience and, of course, cultivate.
Isn't it very not-hunterlike to wait for strong enemies in an arena?
That seems unnecessary risky to me, especially as I cannot understand this thought that small ones aren't worthy. The points were always decent and she should try to lower the numbers of ants.
Shouldn't her "hunter" skill tell her after gathering all the terrain information how to best lie in wait and kill fast without chance of retaliation, instead of letting her get circled with the risk of an unknown force getting attracted to the battle site by her lure?
I will explore this topic in the next chapter, but basically hunt skill works barely yet. Remember, the dungeon consists of rocks so no footprints or broken branches and it erases all remains (smells, other traces...) and blocks sound beyond certain range.
On the one hand, the girl is pretty safe as long as she lay low. On the other, it makes monsters pretty safe from her, too.
Small ants aren't worthy because they would burn her stamina and time (to kill and to rest) but bring no magic stones. Leveling up to, say, 10 would take literally many dozens of them and would be almost meaningless since template gives _really_ poor status grow. She has to cultivate, which either takes time or resources.
Alice doesn't have time. Not because of her quest and tasty 10k BP, but mainly because monsters grow too, yep (I will go and edit her last dungeon entrance to include levels inside as it did before). The only way for her to outdo them is to grow faster, which won't happen with simple template-based leveling.
When I reveal skill shop and its cost, you will also get why she is greedy :)
I am writing this long answer because it really helps me to think through this topic before I write new chapters, so thx for poking my logic.
@Kiriima It still would have felt more logic to me if she would have made the same trap with the ants and then simply cover the prey that comes with arrows.
This sounds less taxing in stamina than life and death battles.
But maybe I am missing something, like the gathering call (which I doubt she anticipated when setting her arena up).
And after all there is always the excuse that a protagonist is no perfect being and limited in its thought processes.
As long she has a reason for taking risks other than power leveling and adrenalin junky it's fine.
What was in common behind double points? Struggle.
Would assasinate (one hit KO, no struggle) a target way stronger, that if the first attempt failed or she is discovered it would mean instant death with no possibility of escape be considered worthy of double point or not?
Alice is sane, so it's a rather long shot. Moreover, she doesn't really get the system workings, so this question is viable under the assumption she is always guessing things correctly, or even guessing RIGHT things at all, which she does not. The next chapter will explore this topic a bit.
Answering your question though: such a decision is a struggle on its own, so abstractly - yep.