Alice swallowed the tenth and last inferior magic stone into her system with some difficulty. Carefully weighted the tiger's core after; the girl looked a bit troubled for how light her bag was.

Life energy was circulating with her bloodstream, straining the veins a bit with its density. Not yet hurtful, just uncomfortable. The dark spot in her heart was being constantly refined even without Alice paying it any special attention, the same was true for every cell in her body where blood was present. Moreover, the blood itself seemed to be slowly changing under the influence of the energy current.

False choice.

Well, not completely false, Alice corrected herself and resolutely forced the energy infusion into her flesh and bones, sparing only inner organs, nerves and other too tender parts. Her whole body became heavy, invisible pressure was as trying to expand her from the inside. The girl's temperature began to raise: if not penetrated by chill for so long, she would have been wet from sweat in seconds.

Keep up with it, she persuaded herself.

Pay attention, reminded immediately.

Alice's hands touched the tiger's core to supplement the expenses with a rich source and she beat down the momentum a bit before fluctuations broke away from her control and alarmed the snake or whole dungeon.

A few first minutes her cultivation proceeded fine, albeit unpleasant. Funny thing, Alice understood the steps with great details thanks to her awareness, yet had no clue what exactly the changes meant from the biological point of view. Even taking only the system status growth into sight, was she a mutant already? Or there was some energy construct body thingy being built without her notice? Or...

I am a mutant.

Own poison was picked casually. Which kid never dreamed to wake up as a mutant anyway? Certainly not Alice, a young nuclear firework engeneer.

Honestly, that part of the system the girl welcomed with fanfare and only grumbled for lack of the fly ability. Even with the Leviathan, she was willing to remain on neutral terms.

Apocalypsis Training? That note Alice was untuned with.

It's going wrong.

Frowningly, Alice observed the flow. Her bones were absorbing energy unevenly. Not on a bone-per-bone basis; instead, each had different layers of penetrability with rare hair-thick points where energy simply refused to go at all. For now, it wasn't a big problem. Later, the girl envisaged, her bones would become more brittle. Like steel with incapsulations of sand.

Muscles were another problem. Some parts were turning up more rigid, unresponsive. Small changes, big consequences. Gritting her teeth, Alice continued on.

 

Half an hour later.

I cannot risk it further.

Not just theoretically bad, the plight of her body was becoming worse right before her inner eyes. Alice absorbed the tiger's core partially and imbalance had become too apparent.

Status.

My Endurance is at the limit... maybe that is the case. One level up until my Strength rams there.

Alice was strangely headstrong with this so-called limit. Did she expect good things from pushing all three physical attributes there at the same time or simply feared for her well-being, even the girl herself wouldn't tell.

What's with the wooden status anyway? Well, I stayed there for long enough. 15 k exp are plenty to farm.

The little roommate snake was sleeping or something. Alice carefully jerked her limbs and sealed her mouth when pricking itch ran from inside out, then back, then out, and so on.

Every movement came hard so she did feel pretty wooden, actually.

"Ha, hou."

Breath in, breath out. The girl warmed up her blood, played on an invisible piano with her fingers.

Here we go.

When the snake lifted up to check the suspicious spot, a rock on the exit was kicked out. Being a proper reptile, it bent down and evaded the improvised projectile, but not a hand that reached out and caught the snake by neck.

Hiss!

Rather a low-level creature wrapped around Alice's arm and twisted with force. Poor bastard wasn't a python, just a bigger poisonous snake. The girl ignored it and slowly stretched her body, curved the back like a cat, tensed and then relaxed every muscle over and over again, regaining the best shape possible.

Her eyes swept over the still dark dungeon cave and then stopped on the water stream that had hid her so well. Alice touched it, shivered from a chill, licked the drop, felt mild traces of microelements and exactly zero dungeon's influence: the source must have an external origin. 

Using her palm as a bridge, greed Alice started to gulp the water inextricably.

When the snake practically stopped flapping in her hand, the girl pulled away, smiled with satisfaction.

"What am I doing with you?" Stared Alice at the reptile, and it looked back glassy. On her first day of 'training', the girl had been particularly cruel to monsters, even basically tortured a centipede. Well, it was a centipede, she had no pity for the ugly creature. Yet now, she felt some. Even if there was no pity back.

With a light sigh, Alice untangled herself from the snake, tossed it in the air.

Swoosh! The sword cut down and the girl turned away, her gaze unwavering again. The girl retrieved her staff from the cleft, assembled the glaive, nodded to herself.

"Here we go."

 

A small figure was creeping through the stone jungles, glancing from side to side, quiet and methodical. When it felt a movement, it stirred into a battle stance, issued a warcry.

Hiss! reverberated through the air, hit Alice in the chest with low vibrations, nearly stumbled her.

Indeed, a [Sonic Snake Lvl. 7].

Reptile avoided the glaive's tip by ducking down and the girl simply transformed thrust into a cut, pressed the snake to the ground and sliced it open with a return movement like a chunk of bread.

[+1600 EXP, +320 BP]

"Isn't it magic already?" Alice asked no one after stabilizing her breathing.

The dungeon had changed. There was no swarm of low-level reptiles in the rock labyrinth anymore, but rare evolved sonic snakes. Alice had stalked one to see what the name even meant, and here was a fairly straightforward answer. It had a small yet long frame and was able to bloat like a balloon to sent out a sonic missile that rendered armor useless. Grumbling, Alice carved out a magic core of the dead when,

Hiss! Hiss!

Two snakes slithered from well beyond the girl's detection range and were rapidly shortening the distance.

"Sonic!" Alice winced like from tooth pain and dived behind a stalagmite. The pair was of levels 8 and 8, the girl had seen them from afar and judged to be the closest danger.

The patrolsnakes came separately and circled her stalagmite with a gap in their timing. Alice used it, dashing out and slashing at one, then the second time when it dodged. A hiss struck at her back, yet the girl resolutely pushed with her strike and cleaved the snake. With her blood agitated, she spun and chopped upside-down with a wide swing. At the last moment, she stepped forward and increased her reach just enough to get the evading bastard.

"Phew."

Every sonic blast seemed to drain strength from her body. Wait... Alice sensed her inner state and noticed some life energy missing. The fuck? Angry, she dismantled the snakes with rough strokes, her thoughts trying and failing to contemplate the issue. Her awareness might be perfect, but as with control only as much as she was paying her attention, and the girl wasn't used to pay much attention to life energy in her veins.

New toy, new challenges, Alice generously forgave herself.

...

"You are kidding."

Hiss! Hiss! Hiss! annoyingly confirmed what her legs and hence vibrations in the ground had already told her.

Alice gripped the shaft. The correct choice against an alarm was always destroying said alarm and not running around with it in the enemy's territory.

Still, the girl retreated behind her stalagmite, finding no use in playing a target.

The snakes split up, as expected. Alice circled her cover, emerging right before a lone bastard. It bloated; the girl rushed forward in a lunge, the glaive's tip accurately followed the snake's head as the girl executed body control to her finest and halved it on spot. Alice sidestepped from a predicted sonic blast; she heard a hiss, felt the air pushing her side before second hiss hit her.

Life energy surged, she sensed, to block the invisible punch, weaken the energy behind be distributing through her whole body. By a strange instinct, Alice added some conscious effort at the end and scattered the impulse into the air by sending some of her life energy out.

"Heh. Now, what will you do?"

The girl stabilized with barely a scratch and taunted the duo snakes. Then she sensed new ground shakes and her facial expression warped.

"You really are kidding me!"